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FiFINE AT THE FaIR, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 



ROBERT BROWNING, 




BOSTON : 
JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY, 

(LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.) 
1872. 



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■ ' iry^"^ 



[from advance sheets.] 



Rand, A very , «5r» C^., Siereotypers and Printers, Boston. 



CONTENTS. 



FiFINE AT THE FaIR . I 

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau 163 

Herve Riel 271 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 



Done Elvire. 
Vous plait-il, don Juan, nous eclaircir ces beaux mysteres ? 

Don Juan. 
Madame, h, vous dire la verite . . . 

Done Elvire. 
Ah ! que vous savez mal vous defendre pour un homme de cour, 
et qui doit etre accoutume a ces sortes de choses ! J'ai pitie de 
vous voir la confusion que vous avez. Que ne vous armez-vous le 
front d'une noble effronterie ? Que ne me jurez-vous que vous 
etes toujours dans les memes sentimens pour moi, que vous m'aimez 
toujours avec une ardeur sans egale, et que rien n'est capable de 
vous detacher de moi que la mort? — Moliere, Don Jican^ Act lier. 
Scene 36. 



Donna Elvira. 
Don Juan, might you please to help one give a guess, 
Hold up a candle, clear this fine mysteriousness ? 

Don Juan. 
Madam, if needs I must declare the truth, — in short . . . 

Donna Elvira. 
Fie ! for a man of mode, accustomed at the court 
To such a style of thing, how awkwardly my lord 
Attempts defence ! You move compassion, — that's the word, — 
Dumfoundered and chapfallen ! Why don't you arm your brow 
With noble impudence ? Why don't you swear and vow 
No sort of change is come to any sentiment 
You ever had for me ? Affection holds the bent ; 
You love me now as erst, with passion that makes pale 
All ardor else : nor aught in nature can avail 
To separate us two, save what, in stopping breath, 
May, peradventure, stop devotion likewise, — death ! 




PROLOGUE. 



Amphibian. 



The fancy I had to-day, — 
Fancy which turned a fear ! 

I swam far out in the bay, 
Since waves laughed warm and clear. 



I lay and looked at the sun ; 

The noon-sun looked at me : 
Between us two, no one 

Live creature, that I could see. 



PROLOGUE, 

III. 
Yes ! — there came floating by 

Me, who lay floating too, 
Such a strange butterfly ! — 

Creature as dear as new ; 

IV. 

Because the membraned wings, 
So wonderful, so wide, 

So sun-suff"used, were things 
Like soul, and nought beside. 



A handbreadth overhead ! 

All of the sea my own, 
It owned the sky instead : 

Both of us were alone. 

VI. 

I never shall join its flight ; 

For nought buoys flesh in air. 
If it touch the sea, good-night ! 

Death sure and swift waits there. 



PROLOGUE, 

VII. 

Can the insect feel the better 
For watching the uncouth play 

Of limbs that slip the fetter, 
Pretend as they were not clay ? 

VIII. 
Undoubtedly I rejoice 

That the air comports so well 
With a creature which had the choice 

Of the land once. Who can tell ? 

IX. 

What if a certain soul 

Which early slipped its sheath, 
And has for its home the whole 

Of heaven, thus look beneath ; 

X. 

Thus watch one, who, in the world 
Both lives, and likes life's way, 

Nor wishes the wings unfurled 
That sleep in the worm, they say ? 



PROLOGUE, 



But sometimes, when the weather 
Is blue, and warm waves tempt 

To free one's self of tether. 
And try a life exempt 

XII. 

From worldly noise and dust, 
In the sphere which overbrims 

With passion and thought, — why, just 
Unable to fly, one swims ! 

XIII. 

By passion and thought upborne, 
One smiles to one's self, " They fare 

Scarce better, they need not scorn 
Our sea, who live in the air." 

XIV. 
Emancipate through passion 

And thought, with sea for sky. 
We substitute, in a fashion. 

For heaven, poetry : 



PROLOGUE. 

XV. 

Which sea, to all intent, 
Gives flesh such noon-disport 

As a finer element 
Affords the spirit-sort. . , 

XVI. 

Whatever they are, we seem ; 

Imagine the thing they know ; 
All deeds they do, we dream : 

Can heaven be else but so ? 

XVII. . 
And, meantime, yonder streak 

Meets the horizon's verge : 
That is the land to seek, 
If we tire, or dread the surge, — 

XVIII. ^ 
Land the solid and safe. 

To welcome again (confess !) 
When, high and dry, we chafe 
The body, and don the dress. 



PROLOGUE. 

XIX. 
Does she look, pity, wonder, 

At one who mimics flight, 
Swims, — heaven above, sea under. 

Yet always earth in sight ? 





FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 



Oh, trip and skip, Elvire ! Link arm in arm with me : 
Like husband and like wife, together let us see 
. The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage 
Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage. 



Now, who supposed the night would play us such a 

prank ? — 
That what was raw and brown, rough pole and shaven 

plank. 
Mere bit of hoarding, half by trestle propped, half tub, 
Would flaunt it forth as brisk as butterfly from grub ? 



8 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

This comes of sun and air, of autumn afternoon, 

And Pornic and Saint Gille, whose feast affords the 

boon, — 
This scaffold turned parterre, this flower-bed in full blow, 
Bateleurs, baladines ! We shall not miss the show ! 
They pace and promenade ; they presently will dance : 
What good were else i' the drum and fife ? O pleasant 

land of France ! 

III. 
Who saw them make their entry ? At wink of eve, 
be sure, 
They love to steal a march, nor lightly risk the lure. 
They keep their treasure hid, nor stale (improvident) 
Before the time is ripe, each wonder of their tent, — 
Yon six-legged sheep, to wit, and he who beats a gong, 
Lifts cap, and waves salute, exhilarates the throng, — 
Their ape of many years and much adventure, grim 
And gray with pitying fools who find a joke in him. 
Or, best, the human beauty, Mimi, Toinette, Fifine, 
Tricot fines down if fat, padding plumps up if lean, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 9 

Er^j shedding petticoat, modesty, and such toys, 
They bounce forth, squalid girls transformed to game- 
some boys. 

IV. 

No, no, thrice, Pornic, no! Perpend the authentic 

tale! 
'Twas not for every Gawain to gaze upon the Grail ! 
But whoso went his rounds when flew bat, flitted midge. 
Might hear across the dusk — where both roads join 

the bridge, 
Hard by the little port — creak a slow caravan, 
A chimneyed house on wheels ; so shyly-sheathed, began 
To broaden out the bud, which, bursting unaware, 
Now takes ^way our breath, queen-tulip of the Fair ! 



Yet morning promised much ; for, pitched and slung 
and reared . 
On terrace 'neath the tower, 'twixt tree and tree appeared 
An airy structure : how the pennon from its dome, 
Frenetic to be free, makes one red stretch for home ! — 



lo FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, 
The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy ; 
Since what lolls full in front, a furlong from the booth, 
But ocean-idleness, sky-blue, and millpond-smooth ? 

VI. 

Frenetic to be free ! And do you know there beats 
Something within my breast as sensitive ? — repeats 
The fever of the flag ? My heart makes just the same 
Passionate stretch, fires up for lawlessness, lays claim 
To share the life they lead, — losels, who have and use 
The hour what way they will, — applaud them, or abuse 
Society, whereof myself am at the beck. 
Whose call obey, and stoop to burden stiffest neck ! 

VII. 

Why is it, that whene'er a faithful few combine 
To cast allegiance off, play truant, nor repine. 
Agree to bear the worst, forego the best in store 
For us, who, left behind, do duty as of yore, — 
Why is it, that, disgraced, they seem to relish life the 
more ? — 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. II 

Seem as they said, " We know a secret passing praise 
Or blame of such as you ! Remain ! we go our ways 
With something you o'erlooked, forgot, or chose to sweep 
Clean out of door, — our pearl picked from your rub- 
bish-heap. 
You care not for your loss : we calculate our gain. 
All's right. Are you content? Why, so let things 

remain ! 
To the wood then, to the wdld : free life, full liberty ! " 
And when they rendezvous beneath the inclement sky, 
House by the hedge, reduced to brute-companionship, — 
Misguided ones who gave society the slip. 
And find too late how boon a parent they despised, 
What ministration spurned, how sweet and civilized, — 
Then, left alone at last with self-sought wretchedness, 
No interloper else ! why is it — can we guess ? — 
At somebody's expense goes up so frank a laugh } 
As though they held the corn, and left us only chaff 
From garners crammed and closed j and we indeed are 

clever 
If we get grain as good by thrashing straw forever. 



12 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

VIII. 
Still, truants as they are, and purpose yet to be, 
That nowise needs forbid they venture — as you see — 
To cross confine, approach the once familiar roof 
O' the kindly race their flight estranged: half stand 

aloof. 
Half sidle up, press near, and proffer wares for sale. 
In their phrase ; make, in ours, white levy of black 

mail. 
They, of the wild, require some touch of us the tame ; 
Since clothing, meat, and drink mean money all the 

same. 

IX. 

If hunger, proverbs say, allures the wolf from wood. 
Much more the bird must dare a dash at something good ; 
Must snatch up, bear away in beak, the trifle-treasure 
To wood and wild, and then — oh, how enjoy at leisure ! 
Was never tree-built nest, you climbed and took, of bird, 
(Rare city-visitant, talked of, scarce seen or heard,) 
But, when you would dissect the structure piece by piece, 
You found inwreathed amid the country-product — 
fleece 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 13 

And feather, thistle-fluffs and bearded windlestraws — 
Some shred of foreign silk, unravelling of gauze, 
Bit, maybe, of brocade, 'mid fur and thistle-down ; 
Filched plainly from mankind, dear tribute paid by town. 
Which proved how oft the bird had plucked up heart of 

grace. 
Swooped down at waif and stray, made furtively our place 
Pay tax and toll, then borne the booty to enrich 
Her paradise i' the waste ; the how and why of which, 
That is the secret, there the mystery that stings. 

X. 

For what they traffic in consists of just the things 
We proud ones who so scorn dwellers without the pale, 
Bateleurs, baladines, white leviers of black mail, — 
I say, they sell what we most pique us that we keep : 
How comes it, all we hold so dear they count so cheap ? 

XI. 

What price should you impose, for instance, on repute, 
Good fame, your own good fame and family's to boot 1 



14 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Stay start of quick mustache, arrest the angry rise 
. Of eyebrow ! All I asked is answered by surprise. 
Now tell me : are you worth the cost of a cigar ? 
Go boldly, enter booth, disburse the coin at bar 
Of doorway where presides the master of the troop. 
And forthwith you sui"vey his Graces in a group, — 
Live picture, picturesque no doubt, and close to life : 
His sisters, right and left ; the Grace in front, his wife. 
Next, who is this performs the feat of the trapeze ? 
Lo, she is launched : look, fie, the fairy ! — how she flees 
O'er all those heads thrust back ! — mouths, eyes, one 

gape and stare. 
No scrap of skirt impedes free passage through the air. 
Till, 2^1umb on the other side, she lights, and laughs 

again, — 
That fairy-form, whereof each muscle, nay, each vein, 
The curious may inspect, — his daughter that he sells 
Each rustic for five sous. Desiderate aught else 
O' the vender ? As you leave his show, — why, joke the 

man : — 
" You cheat : your six-legged sheep, I recollect, began 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 15 

Both life and trade, last year, trimmed properly and 

dipt 
As the Twin-headed Babe and Human Nondescript." 
What does he care ? You paid his price, may pass your 

jest. 
So values he repute, good fame, and all the rest. 

XII. 

But try another tack : say, " I indulge caprice, 
Who am Don and Duke, and Knight, beside, o' the 

Golden Fleece, 
And never mind how rich. Abandon this career j 
Have hearth and home ; nor let your womankind appear 
Without as multiplied a coating as protects 
An onion from the eye ; become, in all respects. 
God-fearing householder, subsistent by brain-skill. 
Hand-labor ; win your bread whatever way you will. 
So it be honestly, — and, while I have a purse. 
Means shall not lack : " his thanks will be the roundest 

curse 
That ever rolled from lip. 



l6 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

XIII. 

Now, what is it — returns 
The question — heartens so this losel, that he spurns 
All we so prize ? I want put down in black and white 
What compensating joy, unknown and infinite, 
Turns lawlessness to law, makes destitution wealth, 
Vice virtue, and disease of soul and body health. 

XIV. 

Ah the slow shake of head, the melancholy smile, 
The sigh almost a sob ! AVhat's wrong, was right ere- 

while ? 
Why are we two at once such ocean-width apart ? 
Pale fingers press my arm, and sad eyes probe my heart. 
Why is the wife in trouble ? 

XV. 

This way, this way, Fifine ! 
Here's she shall make my thoughts be surer what they 

mean ! 
First let me read the signs, portray you past mistake " 
The gypsy's foreign self, no swarth our sun could bake. 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 17 

Yet there's a woolly trace, degrades the wiry hair ? 
And note the Greek-nymph nose, and — oh, my Hebrew 

• pair 
Of eye and eye, — o'erarched by velvet of the mole, — 
That swim as in a sea, that dip and rise and roll, 
Spilling the light around ! while either ear is cut 
Thin as a dusk-leaved rose carved from a cocoa-nut. 
And then her neck ! — now, grant you had the power to 

deck, 
Just as your fancy pleased, the bistre-length of neck ; 
Could lay, to shine against its shade, a moon-like row 
Of pearl, each round and white as bubble Cupids blow 
Big out of mother's milk : what pearl-moon would surpass 
That string of mock-turquoise, those almandines of glass, 
Where girlhood terminates ? for with breasts'-birth com- 
mence 
The boy, and page-costume, till pink and impudence 
End admirably all : complete, the creature trips 
Our way now, brings sunshine upon her spangled hips, 
As here she fronts us full, with pose half frank, half 
fierce ! 



l8 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

XVI. 
Words urged in vain, Elvire ! You waste your carte 
and tierce, 
Lunge at a phantom here, try fence in fairy-land. 
For me, I own defeat ; ask but to understand 
The acknowledged victory of whom I call my queen, 
Sexless and bloodless sprite : though mischievous and 

mean, 
Yet free and flower-like too, with loveliness for law. 
And self-sustainment made morality. 

XVII. 

A flaw 
Do you account i' the lily, of lands which travellers 

I know, 
That, just as a golden gloom supersedes northern snow 
I' the chalice, so, about each pistil, spice is packed. 
Deliriously-drugged scent, in lieu of odor lacked. 
With us, by bee and moth, their banquet to enhance 
At morn and eve, when dew, the chilly sustenance. 
Needs mixture of some chaste and temperate perfump ? 
I ask, is she in fault who guards such golden gloom, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 1 9 

Such dear and damning scent, by who cares what 

devices, 
And takes the idle life of insects she entices. 
When, drowned to heart's desire, they satiate the inside 
O' the lily, mark her wealth, and manifest her pride ? 

XVIII. 

But, wiser, we keep off, nor tempt the acrid juice j 
Discreet we peer and praise, put rich things to right 

use. 
No flavorous venomed bell, — the rose it is, I wot. 
Only the rose, we pluck and place, un wronged a jot, 
No worse for homage done by every devotee, 
V the proper loyal throne, on breast where rose shoiild 

be. 
Or if the simpler sweets we have to choose among 
Would taste between our teeth, and give its toy the 

tongue, — 

gorgeous poison-plague ! on thee no hearts are set j 
We gather daisy meek, or maiden violet : 

1 think it is Elvire we love, and not Fifine. 



20 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

XIX. 
" How does she make my thoughts be sure of what 

they mean ? " 
Judge, and be just ! Suppose an age and time long past 
Renew for our behoof one pageant more, the last 
O' the kind, sick Louis liked to see defile between 
Him and the yawning grave its passage served to screen. 
With eye as gray as lead, with cheek as brown as bronze, 
Here where we stand, shall sit and suffer Louis Onze ; 
The while from yonder tent parade forth, not — oh, no ! — 
Bateleurs, baladines, but range themselves a-row 
Those well-sung women-worthies whereof loud fame still 

finds 
Some echo linger faint, less in our hearts than minds. 

XX. 

See, Helen ! pushed in front o' the world's worst night 
and storm 
By Lady Venus' hand on shoulder ; the sweet form 
Shrinkingly prominent, though mighty, like a moon 
Outbreaking from a cloud, to put harsh things iji tune, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 21 

And magically bring mankind to acquiesce 
In its own ravage, — call no curse upon, but bless 
(Beldam a moment since) the outbreaking beauty, now. 
That casts o'er all the blood a candor from her brow. 
See, Cleopatra ! bared, the entire and sinuous wealth 
O' the shining shape ; each orb of indolent ripe health, 
Captured^ just where it finds a fellow-orb as fine 
I' the body j traced about by jewels which outline. 
Fire-frame, and keep distinct, perfections, lest they melt 
To soft smooth unity ere half their hold be felt : 
Yet, o'er that white and wonder, a soul's predominance 
I' the head so high and haught, except one thievish 

glance. 
From back of oblong eye, intent to count the slain. 
Hush, oh ! I know, Elvire ! Be patient ; more remain. 
What say you to Saint — pish ! whatever saint you 

please, 
Cold-pinnacled aloft o' the spire, prays calm the seas 
From Pornic church, and oft at midnight (peasants say) 
Goes walking out to save from shipwreck : well she 

may; 



22 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

For think how many a year has she been conversant 
With nought but winds and rains, sharp courtesy, and 

scant 
O' the wintry snow that coats the pent-house of her 

shrine. 
Covers each knee, climbs near, but spares the smile 

benign 
Which seems to say, " I looked for scarce so much from 

earth." 
She follows, one long, thin pure finger in the girth 
O' the girdle, whence the folds of garment, eye and eye, 
Besprent with fleur-de-lis, flow down and multiply 
Around her feet ; and one pressed hushingly to lip. 
As if, while thus we made her march, some foundering 

ship 
Might miss her from her post, nearer to God half-way 
In heaven ; and she thought, " Who that treads earth can 

pray? 
I doubt if even she, the unashamed ! though, sure. 
She must have stripped herself only to clothe the 

poor." 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 23 

XXI. 
This time, enough's a feast, not one more form, Elvire ! 
Provided you allow, that, bringing up the rear 
O' the bevy I am loath to — by one bird — curtail, 
First note may lead to last, an octave crown the scale. 
And this feminity be followed — - do not flout ! — 
By — who concludes the mask with courtesy, smile, and 

pout, 
Submissive-mutinous ? No other than Fifine 
Points toe, imposes haunch, and pleads with tambourine. 

XXII. 

" Well, what's the meaning here, what does the mask 
intend, 
Which, unabridged, we saw file past us, with no end 
Of fair ones, till Fifine came, closed the catalogue ? " 

XXIII. 

Task fancy yet again. Suppose you cast this clog 
Of flesh away (that weeps, upbraids, withstands my arm), 
And pass to join your peers j paragon charm with charm, 



24 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

As I shall show you may ; prove best of beauty there ; 
Yourself confront yourself. This help me to declare, 
That yonder-you, who stand beside these, braving each. 
And blinking none, beat her who lured to Troy-town 

beach 
The purple prows of Greece ; nay, beat Fifine, whose 

face 
Mark how I will inflame, when seigneur-like I place 
I' the tambourine, to spot the strained and piteous 

blank 
Of pleading parchment, see, no less than a whole franc ! 

XXIV. 

Ah ! do you mark the brown o' the cloud, made bright 

with fire 
Through and through ? as, old wiles succeeding to 

desire, 
Quality (you and I) once more compassionate 
A hapless infant, doomed (fie on such partial fate !) 
To sink the inborn shame, waive privilege of sex, 
And posture as you see, support the nods and becks 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 25 

Of clowns that have their stare, nor always pay its 

price ; 
An infant born, perchance, as sensitive and nice 
As any soul of you, proud dames, whom destiny 
Keeps uncontaminate from stigma of the sty 
She wallows in ! You draw back skirts from filth like 

her, 
Who possibly braves scorn, if, scorned, she minister 
To age, want, and disease of parents one or both j 
Nay, peradventure, stoops to degradation, loath 
That some just budding sister, the dew yet on the rose, 
Should have to share in turn the ignoble trade : who 

knows ? 



Ay, who indeed ! Myself know nothing, but dare 
guess 
That off she trips in haste to hand the booty — yes, 
'Twixt fold and fold of tent there looms he, dim dis- 
cerned, 
The ogre, lord of all — those lavish limbs have earned ! 



26 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Brute-beast-face — ravage, scar, "scowl, and malig- 
nancy — 
O' the Strong Man, whom (no doubt, her husband) by 

and by 
You shall behold do feats, — lift up, nor quail beneath, 
A quintal in each hand, a cart-wheel 'twixt his teeth. 
Oh ! she prefers sheer strength to ineffective grace. 
Breeding, and culture ; seeks the essential in the case. 
To him has flown my franc ; and welcome, if that squint 
O' the diabolic eye so soften, through absinthe. 
That, for once, tambourine, tunic, and tricot 'scape 
Their customary curse, " Not half the gain of the ape ! " 
Ay, they go in together. 

XXVI. 

Yet still her phantom stays 
Opposite, where you stand as steady 'neath our gaze, — 
The live Elvire's and mine, — though fancy-stuff and 

mere 
Illusion, to be judged, — dream-figures, — without fear 
Or favor, those the false, by you and me the true. 






FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 27 

XXVII. 
"What puts it in my head to make yourself judge 
you ? " 
Well, it may be the name of Helen brought to mind 
A certain myth I mused in years long left behind : 
How she that fled from Greece with Paris, whom she 

loved. 
And came to Troy, and there found shelter, and so 

proved 
Such cause of the world's woe, — how she, old stories call 
This creature, Helen's self, never saw Troy at all. 
Jove had his fancy-fit ; must needs take empty air, 
Fashion her likeness forth, and set the phantom there 
I' the midst for sport, to try conclusions with the blind 
And blundering race, the game create for gods, man- 
kind : 
Experiment on these ; establish who would yearn 
To give up life for her, who, other-minded, spurn 
The best her eyes could smile ; make half the world 

sublime. 
And half absurd, for just a phantom all the time ! 



.28 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Meanwhile true Helen's self sat, safe and far away, 

By a great river-side, beneath a purer day, 

With solitude around, tranquillity within ; 

Was able to lean forth, look, listen, through the din 

And stir ; could estimate the worthlessness or worth 

Of Helen, who inspired such passion to the earth, 

A phantom all the time ! That put it in my head 

To make yourself judge you, — the phantom-wife, instead 

O' the tearful, true Elvire. 

XXVIII. 

I thank the smile at last 
Which thins away the tear. Our sky was overcast. 
And something fell j but day clears up : if there chanced 

rain. 
The landscape glistens more. I have not vexed in vain 
Elvire j because she knows, now she has stood the test, 
How, this and this being good, herself may still be 

best 
O' the beauty in review ; because the flesh that claimed 
Unduly my regard, she thought, the taste she blamed 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 29 

In me for things externe, was all mistake, she finds, 
Or will find when I prove that bodies show me minds ; 
That, through the outward sign, the inward grace allures, 
And sparks from heaven transpierce earth's coarsest 

covertures, — 
All by demonstrating the value of Fifine ! 



Partake my confidence. No creature's made so mean, 
But that, some way, it boasts, could we investigate, 
Its supreme worth \ fulfils, by ordinance of fate, 
Its momentary task ; gets glory all its own \ 
Tastes triumph in the world, pre-eminent, alone. 
Where is the single grain of sand, 'mid millions heaped 
Confusedly on the beach, but, did we know, has leaped, 
Or will leap would we wait, i' the century, some once. 
To the very throne of things ? — earth's brightest for the 

nonce. 
When sunshine shall impinge on just that grain's facette 
Which fronts him fullest, first, returns his ray with jet 






30 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Of promptest praise, thanks God best in creation's 

name. 
As firm is my belief, quick sense perceives the same 
Self-vindicating flash illustrate every man 
And woman of our mass, and prove, throughout the 

plan, 
No detail, but, in place allotted it, was prime 
And perfect. 

XXX. 

Witness her, kept waiting all this time ! 
What happy angle makes Fifine reverberate 
Sunshine, — least sand-grain, she, of shadiest social 

state ? 
No adamantine shield, polished like Helen there, 
Fit to absorb the sun, regorge him till the glare. 
Dazing the universe, draw Troy-ward those blind beaks 
Of equal-sided ships rowed by the well-greaved Greeks. 
No Asian mirror like yon Ptolematic witch 
Able to fix sun fast, and tame sun down, enrich, 
Not burn, the world with beams thus flatteringly rolled 
About her, head to foot, turned slavish snakes of gold ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 31 

And, oh ! no tinted pane of oriel sanctity 

Does our Fifine afford, such as permits supply 

Of lustrous heaven, revealed, far more than mundane sight 

Could master, to thy cell, pure saint ! where, else too 

bright. 
So suits thy sense the orb, that what outside was noon 
Pales through thy lozenged blue to meek benefic moon ! 
What then ? — does that prevent each dunghill we may 

pass 
Daily from boasting, too, its bit of looking-glass, 
Its sherd, which, sun-smit, shines, shoots arrowy fire 

beyond 
That satin-muffled mope, your sulky diamond ? 

XXXI. 

And, now, the mingled ray she shoots I decompose. 
Her antecedents take for execrable ! Gloze 
No whit on your premise : let be there was no worst 
Of degradation spared Fifine, ordained from first 
To last, in body and soul, for one life-long debauch, — 
The Pariah of the North, the European Nautch ! 



32 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

This, far from seek to hide, she puts in evidence 
Calmly, displays the brand, bids pry without offence 
Your finger on the place. You comment, " Fancy us 
So operated on, maltreated, mangled thus ! 
Such torture in our case, had we survived an hour ? 
Some other sort of flesh and blood must be, with power . 
Appropriate to the vile, unsensitive, tough-thonged. 
In lieu of our fine nerve ! Be sure she was not wronged 
Too much : you must not think she winced at prick as 

we ! " 
Come, come, that's what you say; or would, were 

thoughts but free. 

XXXII. 

Well then, thus much confessed, what wonder if there 

steal 
Unchallenged to my heart the force of one appeal 
She makes, and justice stamp the sole claim she asserts ? 
So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts 
The teller, whose worst crime gets somehow grace, 

avowed. 
To me, that silent pose and prayer proclaimed aloud, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 33 

" Know all of me outside : the rest be emptiness 

For such as you ! I call attention to my dress, 

Coiffure, outlandish features, and memorable limbs, 

Piquant entreaty, all that eye-glance overskims. 

Does this much pleasure? Then repay the pleasure; 
put 

Its price i' the tambourine ! Do you seek farther ? Tut ! 

I'm just my instrument, — sound hollow; mere smooth 
skin 

Stretched o'er gilt framework, I : rub-dub, nought else 
within — 

Always, for such as you ! — if I have use elsewhere ; 

If certain bells, now mute, can jingle, need you care ? 

Be it enough, there's truth i' the pleading, which com- 
ports 

With no word spoken out in cottages or courts ; 

Since all I plead is, ' Pay for just the sight you see, 

And give no credit to another charm in me.' 

Do I say, like your love, ' To praise my face is well ; 

But who would know my worth must search my heart 
to tell ' ? 
3 



34 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

Do I say, like your wife ? — ' Had I passed in review 

The produce of the globe, my man of men were — you ! ' 

Do I say, like your Helen ? — ' Yield yourself up, obey 

Implicitly, nor pause to question, to survey 

Even the worshipful ; prostrate you at my shrine : 

Shall you dare controvert what the world counts divine ? 

Array your private taste, own liking of the sense, 

Own longing of the soul, against the impudence 

Of history, the blare and bullying of verse ? 

As if man ever yet saw reason to disburse 

The amount of what sense liked, soul longed for, — 

given, devised 
As love, forsooth, — until the price was recognized 
As moderate enpugh by divers fellow-men ! 
Then, with his warrant safe that these would love too, then. 
Sure that particular gain implies a public loss. 
And that no smile he buys but proves a slash across 
The face, a stab into the side of somebody ; 
Sure that, along with love's main purchase, he will buy 
Up the whole stock of earth's uncharitableness, 
Envy and hatred, — then decides he to profess 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 35 

His estimate of one love had discerned, though dim 
To all the world beside : since what's the world to 

him ? ' 
Do I say, like your Queen of Egypt ? — * Who foregoes 
My cup of witchcraft — fault be on the fool ! He 

knows 
Nothing of how I pack my wine-press, turn its winch 
Three times three, all the time to song and dance, nor 

flinch 
From charming on and on, till at the last I squeeze 
Out the exhaustive drop that leaves behind mere lees 
And dregs, vapidity, thought essence heretofore ! 
Sup of my sorcery, old pleasures please no more ! 
Be great, be good, love, learn, have potency of hand 
Or heart or head, — what boots ? You die, nor under- 
stand 
What bliss might be in life : you ate the grapes, but 

knew 
Never the taste of wine, such vintage as I brew ! ' 
Do I say, like your saint ? — ' An exquisitest touch 
Bides in the birth of things : no after- time can much 



36 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Enhance that fine, that faint, fugitive first of all ! 

What color paints the cup o' the May-rose like the small 

Suspicion of a blush which doubtfully begins ? 

What sound out-warbles brook, while, at the source, it 

wins 
That moss and stone dispart, allow its bubblings breathe? 
What taste excels the fruit, just where sharp flavors 

sheathe 
Their sting, and let encroach the honey that allays ? 
And so with soul and sense : when sanctity betrays 
First fear lest earth below seem real as heaven above, 
And holy worship, late, change soon to sinful love, 
Where is the plenitude of passion which endures 
Comparison with that, I ask of amateurs ? ' 
Do I say, like Elvire " — 

XXXIII. 

(Your husband holds you fast, 
Will have you listen, learn your character at last !) — 
" Do I say ? — like her mixed unrest and discontent, 
Reproachfulness and scorn, with that submission blent 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 37 

So strangely in the face by sad smiles and gay tears, — 
Quiescence which attacks, rebellion which endears, — 
Say ? — 'As you love me once, could you but love me 

now ! 
Years probably have graved their passage on my brow, 
Lips turn more rarely red, eyes sparkle less than erst ; 
Such tribute body pays to time : but, unamerced, 
The soul retains, nay, boasts old treasure multiplied. 
Though dew-prime flee, — mature at noonday, love defied 
Chance, the wind, change, the rain j love, strenuous all 

the more 
For storm, struck deeper root, and choicer fruitage bore, 
Despite the rocking world. Yet truth struck root in 

vain : 
While tenderness bears fruit, you praise, not taste again. 
Why ? They are yours, which once were hardly yours, 

might go 
To grace another's ground; and then — the hopes we 

know. 
The fears we keep in mind ! when, ours to arbitrate,. 
Your part was to bow neck, bid fall decree of fate. 



38 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Then, oh the knotty point ! — white-night's work to 

revolve, — 
What meant that smile, that sigh ? Not Solon's self 

could solve ! 
Then, oh the deep surmise what one word might express ! 
And if what sounded "No'* may not have echoed 

" Yes ! " 
Then such annoy could cause cold welcome, such ac- 

quist 
Of rapture, that, refused the arm, hand touched the 

wrist ! 
Now, what's a smile to you ? Poor candle that lights up 
The decent household gloom which sends you out to sup. 
A tear?, worse! warns that health requires you keep 

aloof 
From nuptial chamber, since rain penetrates the roof! 
For all is got and gained, inalienably safe, 
Your own, and, so, despised ; more worth has any waif 
Or stray from neighbor's pale : pouch that, — 'tis pleas- 
ure, pride, 
Novelty, property, and larceny beside I 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 39 

Preposterous thought ! to find no value fixed in things ; 
To covet all you see, hear, dream of, till fate brings 
About, that, what you want, you get; then comes a 

change. 
Give you the sun to keep, forthwith must fancy range : 
A goodly lamp, no doubt ; yet might you catch her hair, 
And capture, as she frisks, the fen-fire dancing there ! 
What do I say ? at least, a meteor's half in heaven : 
Provided filth but shine, my husband hankers even 
After putridity that's phosphorescent; cribs 
The rustic's tallow-rush ; makes spoil of urchins' squibs ; 
In short, prefers to me — chaste, temperate, serene — 
What sputters green and blue, this fizgig called Fifine ! ' " 

xxxiv. 
So all your sex mistake ! Strange that so plain a 
fact 
Should raise such dire debate ! Few families were 

racked 
By torture self-supplied, did Nature grant but tHs, — 
That women comprehend mental analysis ! 



40 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

XXXV. 

Elvire, do you recall when, years ago, our home 
The intimation reached, a certain pride of Rome, 
Authenticated piece, in the third, last, and best 
Manner, — whatever fools and connoisseurs contest, — 
No particle disturbed by rude restorer's touch. 
The palaced picture-pearl, so long eluding clutch 
Of creditor, at last the Raphael might — could we 
But come to terms — change lord, pass from the prince 

to me ? 
I think you recollect my fever of a year ; 
How the prince w^ould, and how he would not : now, too 

dear 
That promise was he made his grandsire so long since, — 
Rather to boast " I own a Raphael " than " am prince ! " 
And now, the fancy soothed, — if really sell he must 
His birthright for a mess of pottage, — such a thrust 
I' the vitals of the prince were mollified by balm. 
Could he prevail upon his stomach to bear qualm, 
And bequeath Liberty (because a purchaser 
Was ready with the sum, — a trifle !) ; yes, transfer 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 41 

His heart, at all events, to that land where, at least, 

Free institutions reign ! And so, its price increased 

Fivefold (Americans are such importunates !), 

Soon must his Raphael start for the United States. 

Oh alternating bursts of hope, and then despair ! 

At last, the bargain's struck; I'm all but beggared: there 

The Raphael faces me, in fine, no dream at all, 

My housemate, evermore to glorify my wall. 

A week I pass, before heart-palpitations sink, 

In gloating o'er my gain, so lately on the brink 

Of loss j a fortnight more I spend in paradise : — 

" Was outline e'er so true, could coloring entice 

So calm, did harmony and quiet so avail ? 

How right, how resolute, the action tells the tale ! " 

A month, I bid my friends congratulate their best : — 

" You happy Don ! " (to me) " The blockhead ! " (to the 

rest) ; 
" No doubt he thinks his daub original, poor dupe ! " 
Then I resume my life : one chamber must not coop 
My life in, though it boast a marvel like my prize. 
This year, I saunter past with unaverted eyes ; 



42 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Nay, loll and turn my back ; perchance to overlook 
With relish, leaf by leaf, Dore's last picture-book. 

XXXVI. 

Imagine that a voice reproached me from its frame : — 
" Here do I hang, and may ! Your Raphael, just the 

same ; 
'Tis only you that change : no ecstasies of yore ! 
No purposed suicide distracts you any more ! " 
Prompt would my answer turn such frivolous attack : — 
" You misappropriate sensations. What I lack, 
And labor to obtain, is hoped and feared about 
After a fashion : what I once obtain, makes doubt, 
Expectancy, old fret and fume, henceforward void. 
But do I think to hold my havings unalloyed 
By novel hope and fear, of fashion just as new, 
To correspond i' the scale ? Nowise, I promise you ! 
Mine you are, therefore mine will be, as fit to cheer 
My soul and glad my sense to-day as this-d ay-year. 
So, any sketch or scrap, pochade, caricature. 
Made in a moment, meant a moment to endure, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 43 

I snap at, seize, and then forever throw aside, 

And find you in your place. But if a servant cried 

' Fire in the gallery ! ' — methinks, were I engaged 

In Dore, elbow-deep, portfolios million-paged 

To the four winds would pack, sped by the heartiest 

curse 
Was ever launched from lip, to strew the universe j 
While I would brave the best o' the burning, bear away 
Either my perfect piece in safety, or else stay 
And share its fate : if made a martyr, why repine ? 
Inextricably wed, such ashes mixed with mine ! " 

XXXVII. 

For which I get the eye, the hand, the heart, the whole 
O' the wondrous wife again ! 

XXXVIII. 

But no : play out your role 
I' the pageant ! 'Tis not fit your phantom leave the 

stage : 
I want you, there, to make you, here, confess you wage 



44 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

Successful warfare, pique those proud ones, and advance 

Claim to — equality ? nay, but predominance 

In physique o'er them all, where Helen heads the scene 

Closed by its tiniest of tail-tips, pert Fifine. 

How ravishingly pure you stand in pale constraint I 

My new-created shape, without or touch or taint, 

Inviolate of life and worldliness and sin, — 

Fettered, I hold my flower, her own cup's weight would 

win 
From off the tall slight stalk a-top of which she turns 
And trembles, makes appeal to one who roughly earns 
Her thanks instead of blame (did lily only know), 
By thus constraining length of lily, letting snow 
Of cup-crown, that's her face, look from its guardian 

stake. 
Superb on all that crawls beneath, and mutely make 
Defiance, with the mouth's white movement of disdain. 
To all that stoops, retires, and hovers round again ! 
How windingly the limbs delay to lead up, reach 
Where, crowned, the head waits calm ! as if reluctant, 

each, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 45 

That eye should traverse quick such lengths of loveli- 
ness. 
From feet, which just are found embedded in the dress 
Deep swathed about with folds and Sowings virginal 
Up to the pleated breasts, rebellious 'neath their pall, 
As if the vesture's snow were moulding sleep, not death ; 
Must melt, and must release : whereat, from the fine 

sheath, 
The flower-cup-crown starts free, the face is unconcealed ; 
And what shall now divert, once the sweet face revealed. 
From all I loved so long, so lingeringly left ? 

XXXIX. 

Because, indeed, your face fits into just the cleft 
O' the heart of me, Elvire ; makes right and whole once 

more 
All that was half itself without you ! As before. 
My truant in its place ! Because e'en sea-shells yearn, 
Plundered by any chance : would have their pearl return. 
Let negligently slip away into the wave ! 
Never may they desist, those eyes so gray and grave. 



46 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

From their slow sure supply of the effluent soul within ! 
And — would you humor me ? — I dare to ask, unpin 
The web of that brown hair! O'er wash o' the sudden, 

but 
As promptly, too, disclose, on either side, the jut 
Of alabaster brow ! So part, those rillets dyed 
Deep by the woodland leaf, when down they pour, each 

side 
O' the rock-top, pushed by Spring ! 

XL. 

"And where i' the world is all 
This wonder, I detail so trippingly, espied ? 
Your mirror would reflect a tall, thin, pale, deep-eyed 
Personage, pretty once, it may be, doubtless still, 
Loving, — a certain grace yet lingers, if I will, — 
But all this wonder, where ? " 

XLI. 

Why, where but in the sense 
And soul of me, the judge of art ? Art-evidence, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 47 

That thing was, is, might be ; but no more thing itself 
Than flame is fuel. Once the verse-book laid on shelf. 
The picture turned to wall, the music fled from ear, 
Each beauty, born of each, grows clearer and more 

clear, 
Mine henceforth, ever mine ! 

XLir. 

But if I would retrace 
Effect in art to cause, corroborate, erase 
What's right or wrong i' the lines, test fancy in my brain 
By fact which gave it birth ? I reperuse in vain 
The verse ; I fail to find that vision of delight 
I' the Razzi's lost profile, eye-edge so exquisite. 
And music : what ? that burst of pillared cloud by day 
And pillared fire by night was product, must we say, 
Of modulating just by enharmonic change, — 
The augmented sixth resolved, — from out the straighter 

range 
Of D sharp minor, — leap of disimprisoned thrall, — 
Into thy light and life, D major natural ? 



48 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

XLIII. 
Elvire, will you partake in what I shall impart? 
I seem to understand the way heart chooses heart 
By help of the outside face, — a reason for our wild 
Diversity in choice, — why each grows reconciled 
To what is absent, v/hat superfluous in the mask : 
Material meant to yield, — did Nature ply her task 
As artist should, — precise the features of the soul ; 
Which, if in any case they found expression, whole 
I' the traits, would give a type, undoubtedly display 
A novel, true, distinct perfection in its way. 
Never shall I believe any two souls were made 
Similar : granting, then, each soul of every grade 
Was meant to be itself, and in itself complete, 
And in completion good, — nay, best o' the kind, — as 

meet 
Needs must it be that show on the outside correspond 
With inward substance, — flesh, the dress which soul 

has donned. 
Exactly reproduce, — were only justice done 
Inside and outside too, — types perfect every one. 



FIFINE AT THE'^FAIR, 49 

How happens it that here we meet a mystery 
Insoluble to man, a plaguy puzzle ? Why 
Either is each soul made imperfect, and deserves 
As rude a face to match, or else a bungler swerves, 
And Nature, on a soul worth rendering aright. 
Works ill, or proves perverse, or, in her own de- 
spite, — 
Here too much, there too little, — makes each face more 

or less 
Retire from beauty, and approach to ugliness ? 
And yet succeeds the same : since, what is wanting to 

success. 
If somehow every face, no matter how deform, 
Evidence to some one of hearts on earth, that, warm 
Beneath the veriest ash, there hides a spark of soul, 
Which, quickened by love's breath, may yet pervade the 

whole 
O' the gray, and, free again, be fire? — of worth the 

same, 
Howe'er produced j for, great or little, flame is flame. 
A mystery, whereof solution is to seek. 



5© FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

XLIV. 
I find it in the fact that each soul, just as weak 
Its own way as its fellow, — departure from design 
As flagrant in the flesh, — goes striving to combine 
With what shall right the wrong, the under or above 
The standard ; supplement unloveliness by love. 
Ask Plato else ! And this corroborates the sage, 
That art, — which I may style the love of loving, rage 
Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of things 
For truth's sake, whole and sole, nor any good truth 

brings 
The knower, seer, feeler, beside, — instinctive art. 
Must fumble for the whole, once fixing on a part, 
However poor, surpass the fragment, and aspire 
To reconstruct thereby the ultimate entire. 
Art, working with a will, discards the superflux. 
Contributes to defect, toils on, till — fiat lux — 
There's the restored, the prime, the individual type ! 

XLV. 

Look, for example, now ! This piece of broken pipe 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 51 

(Some shipman's solace erst) shall act as crayon ; and 
What tablet better serves my purpose than the sand ? — 
Smooth slab whereon I draw, no matter with what skill, 
A face, and yet another, and yet another still. 
There lie my three prime types of beauty ! 



XLVI. 

Laugh your best ! 
" Exaggeration and absurdity ? " Confessed ! 
Yet what may that face mean ? — no matter for its nose, 
A yard long ; or its chin, a foot short. 

XLVII. 

" You suppose. 
Horror ? " Exactly ! What's the odds, if, more or less 
By yard or foot, the features do manage to express 
Such meaning in the main ? Were I of Gerome's force. 
Nor feeble as you see, quick should my crayon course 
O'er outline, curb, excite, till — so completion speeds 
With Gerome well at work — observe how brow recedes. 



52 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Head shudders back on spine, as if one haled the hair, 
Would have the full-face front what pin-point eye's sharp 

stare 
Announces ; mouth agape to drink the flowing fate, 
While chin protrudes to meet the burst o' the wave : elate 
Almost, spurred on to brave necessity, expend 
All life left, in one flash, as fire does at its end. 
Retrenchment and addition effect a masterpiece, 
Not change i' the motive : here diminish, there increase ; 
And who wants Horror has it. 

XL VIII. 

Who wants some other show 
Of soul may seek elsewhere, — this second of the row .-* 
What do^s it give for germ, monadic mere intent 
Of mind in face, faint first of meanings ever meant ? 
AVhy, possibly, a grin, that, strengthened, grows a laugh ; 
That, softened, leaves a smile ; that, tempered, bids you 

quaff 
At such a magic cup as English Reynolds once 
Compounded : for the witch pulls out of you response 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. ^Z 

Like Garrick's to Thalia, however due may be 

Your homage claimed by that stiff-stoled Melpomene ! 



XLIX. 

And just this one face more ! Pardon the bold pre- 
tence ! 
May there not lurk some hint, struggle toward evidence, 
In that compressed mouth, those strained nostrils, stead- 
fast eyes 
Of utter passion, absolute self-sacrifice, 
Which — could I but subdue the wild grotesque, refine 
That bulge of brow, make blunt that nose's aquiline. 
And let, although compressed, a point of pulp appear 
I' the mouth — would give at last the portrait of Elvire ? 

L. 

Well, and if so succeed hand-practice on awry 
Preposterous art-mistake, shall soul-proficiency 
Despair, — when exercised on nature, which at worst 
Always implies success, — however crossed and curst 



54 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

By failure, — such as art would emulate in vain ? 

Shall any soul despair of setting free again 

Trait after trait, until the type as wholly start 

Forth, visible to sense, as that minutest part, 

(Whate'er the chance,) which, first arresting eye, warned 

soul, 
That, under wrong enough and ravage, lay the whole 
O' the loveliness it " loved," — I take the accepted 

phrase ? 



So I account for tastes : each chooses, none gainsays 
The fancy of his fellow, a paradise for him, 
A hell for all beside. You can but crown the brim 
O' the cup : if it be full, what matters less or more ? 
Let each i' the world amend his love, as I o' the shore 
My sketch, and the result as undisputed be ! 
Their handiwork to them, and my Elvire to me : 
Result more beautiful than Beauty's self, when, lo, 
What was my Raphael turns my Michelagnolo 1 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 55 

LII. 
For we two boast, beside our pearl, a diamond. 
I' the palace-gallery, the corridor beyond, 
Upheaves itself a marble, a magnitude man-shaped 
As snow might be. One hand — the Master's — 

smoothed and scraped 
That mass he hammered on and hewed at, till he 

hurled 
Life out of death, and left a challenge : for the world, 
Death still ; since who shall dare, close to the image, say 
If this be purposed Art, or mere mimetic play 
Of Nature ? — wont to deal with crag or cloud, as stuff 
To fashion novel forms, like forms we know, enough 
For recognition, but enough unlike the same 
To leave no hope ourselves may profit by her game : 
Death therefore to the world. Step back a pace or 

two ! 
And then who dares dispute the gradual birth its due 
Of breathing life, or breathless immortality, 
Where out she stands, and yet stops short, half bold, 

half shy. 



56 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Hesitates on the threshold of things, since partly blent 
With stuff she needs must quit, her native element 
I' the mind o' the Master, — what's the creature, dear- 
divine 
Yet earthly-awful too, so manly-feminine, 
Pretends this white advance ? What startling brain- 
escape 
Of Michelagnolo takes elemental shape ? 
I think he meant the daughter of the old man o' the 

sea, 
Emerging from her wave, goddess Eidothee, — 
She who, in elvish sport, spite with benevolence 
Mixed Mab-wise up, must needs instruct the hero 

whence 
Salvation dawns o'er that mad misery of his isle. 
Yes, she imparts to him by what a pranksome wile 
He may surprise her sire, asleep beneath a rock, 
When he has told their tale, amid his web-foot flock 
Of sea-beasts, " fine fat seals with bitter breath ! " laughs 

she 
At whom she likes to save, no less : Eidothee, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 57 

Whom you shall never face evolved, in earth, in air. 

In wave; but, manifest i' the soul's domain,^- why, there 

She ravishingly moves to meet you, ail through aid 

O' the soul ! Bid shine what should, dismiss into the 

shade 
What should not be, and there triumphs the paramount 
Emprise o' the Master ! But attempt to make account 
Of what the sense without the soul perceives? I 

bought 
That work (despite plain proof whose hand it was had 

wrought 
I' the rough, I think we trace the tool of triple-tooth 
Here, there, and everywhere), — bought dearly that un- 
couth, 
Unwieldy bulk, for just ten dollars, — " Bulk would 

fetch — 
Converted into " lime — some five pauls ! " grinned a 

wretch. 
Who, bound on business, paused to hear the bargaining, 
And would have pitied me " but for the fun o' the 

thing ! " 



58 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

LIII. 
Shall such a wretch be — you ? Must — while I show 
Elvire 
Shaming all other forms, seen as I see her here 
I' the soul — this other-you perversely look outside, 
And ask me, "Where i' the world is charm to be descried 
I' the tall thin personage, with paled eye, pensive face. 
Any amount of love, and some remains of grace ? " 
See yourself in my soul ! 

LIV. 

And what a world for each 
Must somehow be i' the soul ! — accept that mode of 

speech, — 
Whether an aicra gird the soul, wherein it seems 
To float and move, a belt of all the glints and gleams 
It struck from out that world its weaklier fellows found 
So dead and cold ; or whether these not so much sur- 
round 
As pass into the soul itself, add worth to worth, 
As wine enriches blood, and straightway send it forth, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 59 

Conquering and to conquer, through all eternity : 
That's battle without end. 



LV. 

I search but cannot see 
What purpose serves the soul that strives, or world it 

tries 
Conclusions with, unless the fruit of victories 
Stay, one and all, stored up and guaranteed its own 
Forever by some mode whereby shall be made known 
The gain of every life. Death reads the title clear, — 
What each soul for itself conquered from out things here ; 
Since in the seeing soul all worth lies, I assert. 
And nought i' the world, which, save for soul that sees, 

inert 
Was, is, and would be ever, — stuff for transmuting, — 

null 
And void until man's breath evoke the beautiful ; 
But, touched aright, prompt yields each particle its 

tongue 
Of elemental flame, no matter whence flame sprung 



6o FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

From gums and spice, or else from straw and rotten- 
ness, 
So long as soul has power to make them burn,, express 
What lights and warms henceforth, leaves • only ash 

behind, 
Howe'er the chance : if soul be privileged to find 
Food so soon, that at first snatch of eye, suck of breath. 
It shall absorb pure life ; or, rather, meeting death 
I' the shape of ugliness, by fortunate recoil 
So put on its resource, it finds therein a foil 
For a new birth of life, the challenged soul's response 
To ugliness and death, — creation for the nonce. 

LVI. 

I gather heart through just such conquests of the soul. 
Through evocation out of that, which, on the whole, 
Was rough, ungainly, partial accomplishment at best. 
And — what, at worst, save failure to spit at and 

detest ? — 
Through transference of all, achieved in visible things, 
To rest, secure from wrong, 'mid mere imaginings ; 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 6 1 

Through ardor to bring help just where completion halts, 
Do justice to the purpose, ignore the slips and faults ; 
And last, not least, with stark deformity through fight 
Which wrings thence, at the end, precise its opposite. 
I praise the loyalty o' the scholar — stung by taunt 
Of fools, " Does this evince thy Master they so vaunt ? 
Did he then perpetrate the plain abortion here ? " — 
Who cries, " His work am I ! full fraught by him, I clear 
His fame from each result of accident and time. 
And thus restore his work to its fresh morning-prime : 
Not daring touch the mass of marble, fools deride, 
But putting my idea in plaster by its side, 
His, since mine j I, he made, vindicate who made me ! " 

LVII. 

For, you must know, I too achieve Eidothee, 
In silence and by night, — dared justify the lines 
Plain to my soul, although, to sense, that triple-tine's 
Achievement halt half-way, break down, or leave a 

blank. 
If she stood forth at last, the Master was to thank ! 



62 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Yet may there not have smiled approval in his eyes, — 
That one at least was left, who, born to recognize 
Perfection in the piece imperfect, worked that night 
In silence, such his faith, until the apposite 
Design was out of him, truth palpable once more ; 
And then — for at one blow its fragments strewed the 

floor — 
Recalled the same to live within his soul as heretofore. 

LVIII. 

And, even as I hold and have Eidothee, 
I say, I cannot think that gains, — which would not be 
Except a special soul had gained them, — that such gain 
Can ever be estranged, do aught but appertain 
Immortally, by right firm, indefeasible. 
To who performed the feat, through God's grace and 

man's will ! 
Gain never shared by those who practised with earth's 

stuff. 
And spoiled whate'er they touch, leaving its roughness 

rough, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 63 

Its blankness bare, and, when the ugliness opposed. 
Either struck work, or laughed, "He doted or he 
dozed ! " 

LIX. 

While, oh, how all the more will love become intense 
Hereafter, when " to love " means yearning to dispense. 
Each soul, its own amount of gain, through its own mode 
Of practising with life, upon some soul which owed 
Its treasure, all diverse, and yet in worth the same, 
To new work and changed way ! Things furnish you 
rose-flame, 
. Which burn up red, green, blue, nay, yellow, more than 

needs, 
For me, I nowise doubt : why doubt a time succeeds 
When each one may impart, and each receive, both share 
The chemic secret, learn, where I lit force, — why, there 
You drew forth lambent pity ; where I found only food 
For self-indulgence, you still blew a spark at brood ^ 
I' the grayest ember, stopped not till self-sacrifice im- 
bued 



64 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Heaven's face with flame ? What joy when each may- 
supplement 
The other, changing each, as changed, till, wholly blent, 
The old things shall be new, and, what we both ignite, 
Fuse, lose the varicolor in achromatic white ! 
Exemplifying law, apparent even now 
In the eternal progress, — love's law, which I avow, 
And thus would formulate : each soul lives, longs, and 

works 
For itself, by itself, because a loadstar lurks. 
An other than itself, — in whatsoe'er the niche 
Of mistiest heaven it hide, whoe'er the Glumdalclich 
May grasp the Gulliver : or it, or he, or she, — 
Theosutos e broteios eper kekramene^ — 
(For fun's sake, where the phrase has fastened, leave it 

fixed ! 
So soft it says, — God^ man, or both together mixed !) 
This, guessed at through the flesh, by parts which prove 

the whole. 
This constitutes the soul discernible by soul, — 
Elvire, by me ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 65 

LX. 

" And then " (so you permit remain 
This hand upon my arm ! — your cheek dried, if you 

deign, 
Choosing my shoulder) — *' then ! " (stand up for, boldly 

state. 
The objection in its length and breadth !) — '^ you abdi- 
cate, 
With boast yet on your lip, soul's empire, and accept 
The rule of sense ; the man, from monarch's throne has 

stept, — 
Leaped, rather, at one bound, to base, and there lies, 

brute. 
You talk of soul, — how soul, in search of soul to suit, 
Must needs review the sex, the army rank and file 
Of womankind ; report no face nor form so vile 
But that a certain worth, by certain signs, may thence 
Evolve itself, and stand confessed — to soul — by 

sense. 
Sense ? Oh, the loyal bee endeavors for the hive ! 
Disinterested hunts the flower-field through, alive 



66 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Not one mean moment, no, — suppose on flower he 

light, — 
To his peculiar drop, petal-dew perquisite, 
Matter-of-course snatched snack : unless he taste, how 

try ? 
This, light on tongue-tip laid, allows him pack his thigh, 
Transport all he counts prize, provision for the comb. 
Food for the future day, — a banquet, but at home ! 
Soul ? Ere you reach Fifine's, some flesh may be to 

pass ! 
That bombed brow, that eye, a kindling chrysoprase, 
Beneath its stiff black lash, inquisitive how speeds 
Each functionary limb, how play of foot succeeds. 
And how you let escape or duly sympathize 
With gastro-knemian grace, — true, your soul tastes and 

tries, 
And trifles time with these, but, fear not, will arrive 
At essence in the core, bring honey home to hive. 
Brain-stock and heart-stuff both, — to strike objectors 

dumb, — 
Since only soul affords the soul fit pabulum ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 67 

Be frank for charity ! Who is it you deceive — 
Yourself or me or God — with all this make-believe ? " 



And frank I will respond as you interrogate. 
Ah, Music, wouldst thou help ! Words struggle with the 

weight 
So feebly of the False, thick element between 
Our soul, the True, and Truth ! which, but that intervene 
False shows of things, were reached as easily by 

thought 
Reducible to word, as now by yearnings wrought 
Up with thy fine, free force, O Music ! that canst thrid, 
Electrically win, a passage through the lid 
Of earthly sepulchre, our words may push against. 
Hardly transpierce as thou ! Not dissipate, thou 

deign'st. 
So much as tricksily elude what words attempt 
To heave away, i' the mass, and let the soul, exempt 
From all that vapory obstruction, view, instead 
Of glimmer underneath, a glory overhead. 



68 ' FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Not feebly, like our phrase, against the barrier go 

In suspirative swell the authentic notes I know ; 

By help whereof, I would our souls were found without 

The pale, above the dense and dim which breeds tlie 

doubt ! 
But Music, dumb for you, withdraws her help from me ; 
And, since to weary words recourse again must be, 
At least permit they rest their burthen here and there, 
Music-like : cover space ! My answer — need you care 
If it exceed the bounds, reply to questioning 
You never meant should plague ? Once fairly on the 

wing, 
Let me flap far and wide ! 

LXII. 

For this is just the time, 
The place, the mood in you and me, when all things 

chime. 
Clash forth life's common chord ; whence, list how there 

ascend 
Harmonics far and faint, till our perception end, — 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 69 

Reverberated notes whence we construct the scale 
Embracing what we know and feel and are ! How 

fail 
To find, or, better, lose your question, in this quick 
Reply which Nature yields, ample and catholic ? 
For, arm in arm, we two have reached, nay, passed, you 

see, 
The village-precinct : sun sets mild on Saint-Marie, — 
AVe only catch the spire j and yet I seem to know 
What's hid i' the turn o' the hill ; how all the graves 

must glow 
Soberly, as each warms its little iron cross. 
Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private 

loss 
Be fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow, crisp bead- 
blooms 
Which tempt down birds to pay their supper, 'mid the 

tombs. 
With prattle good as song, amuse the dead a while. 
If couched they hear beneath the matted camo- 
mile ! 



70 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

LXIII. 
Bid them good-by before last friend has sung and 
supped ! 
Because we pick our path, and need our eyes, — abrupt , 
Descent enough ; but here's the beach, and there's the 

bay, 
And, opposite, the streak of Isle Noirmoutier. 
Thither the waters tend : they freshen as they haste. 
At feel o' the night-wind ; though, by cliff and cliff em- 
braced. 
This breadth of blue retains its self-possession still \ 
As you and I intend to do, who take our fill 
Of sights and sounds, — soft sound, the countless hum 

and skip 
Of insects we disturb, and that good fellowship 
Of rabbits our foot-fall sends huddling, each to hide 
He best knows how and where ; and what whirred past, 

wings wide ? 
That was an owl, their young may justlier apprehend ! 
Though you refuse to speak, your beating heart, my 
friend, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 7 1 

I feel against my arm ; though your bent head forbids 
A look into your eyes, yet on my cheek their lids, 
That ope and shut, soft send a silken thrill the same. 
Well, out of all and each these nothings comes — what 

came 
Often enough before — the something that would aim 
Once more at the old mark \ the impulse to at last 
Succeed where hitherto was failure in the past,] 
And yet again essay the adventure. Clearlier sings 
No bird to its couched corpse, "Into the truth of things — 
Out of their falseness rise, and reach thou, and remain ! " 

LXIV. 

" That rise into the true out of the false — explain ? " 
May an example serve ? In yonder bay I bathed 
This sunny morning ; swam my best ; then hung, half 

swathed 
With chill and half with warmth, i' the channel's mid- 
most deep : 
You know how one — not treads, but stands in water ? 
Keep 



72 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Body and limbs below, hold head back, uplift chin, 
And, for the rest, leave care ! If brow, eyes, mouth, 

should win 
Their freedom, — excellent ! If they must brook the 

surge. 
No matter though they sink, let but the nose emerge. 
So all of me in brine lay soaking : did I care 
One jot? I kept alive by man's due breath of air 
I' the nostrils, high and dry. At times, o'er these would 

run 
The ripple, even wash the wavelet ; for the sun 
Tempted advance, no doubt : and always flash of froth. 
Fish-outbreak, bubbling by, would find me nothing 

loath 
To rise and look around ; then all was overswept 
With dark and death at once. But trust the old adept ! 
Back went again the head ; a merest motion made, 
Fin-fashion, either hand ; and nostril soon conveyed 
The news that light and life were still in reach as erst : 
Always the last, and — wait and watch — sometimes the 

first. 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 73 

Try to ascend breast-high? wave arms wide" free of 

tether ? 
Be in the air, and leave the water altogether ? 
Under went all again, till I resigned myself 
To only breathe the air, that's footed by an elf; 
And only swim the water, that's native to a fish. 
But there is no denying, that ere I curbed my wish, 
And schooled my restive arms, salt entered mouth and 

eyes 
Often enough, — sun, sky, and air so tantalize ! 
Still the adept swims, this accorded, that denied ; 
Can always breathe, sometimes see and be satisfied ! 

LXV. 

I liken to this play o' the body — fruitless strife 
To slip the sea, and hold the heaven — my spirit's life 
'Twixt false, whence it would break, and true, where it 

would bide. 
I move in, yet resist ; am upborne every side 
By what I beat against, — an element too gross 
To live in, did not soul duly obtain her dose 



74 FTFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Of life-breath, and inhale from truth's pure plenitude 
Above her, snatch and gain enough to just illude 
With hope that some brave bound may baffle evermore 
The obstructing medium, make who swam henceforward 

soar : 
Gain scarcely snatched, when, foiled by the very effort, 

sowse. 
Underneath ducks the soul, her truthward yearnings 

dowse 
Deeper in falsehood ! ay, but fitted less and less 
To bear in nose and mouth old briny bitterness 
Proved alien more and more ; since each experience 

proves 
Air the essential good, not sea, wherein who moves 
Must thence, in the act, escape, apart from will or 

wish. 
Move a mere hand to take waterweed, jelly-fish. 
Upward you tend ! And yet our business with the sea 
Is not with air, but just o' the water, watery : 
We must endure the false, no particle of which 
Do we acquaint us with, but up we mount a pitch 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 75 

Above it, find our head reach truth, while hands explore 
The false below : so much while here we bathe, — no 
more ! 

LXVI. 

Now, there is one prime point, (hear and be edified !) 
One truth more true for me than any truth beside ; 
To wit, that I am I, who have the power to sv^^im, 
The skill to understand the law whereby each limb 
May bear to keep immersed, since, in return, made sure 
That its mere movement lifts head clean through cover- 
ture. 
By practice with the false, I reach the true ? Why, 

thence 
It follows, that the more I gain self-confidence, 
Get proof I know the trick, can float, sink, rise, at will. 
The better I submit to what I have the ^kill 
To conquer in my turn, even now, and by and by 
Leave wholly for the land, and there laugh, shake me 

dry 
To last drop, saturate with noonday, — no need m.ore 
Of wet and fret, plagued once : on Pornic's placid shore 



76 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Abundant air to breathe, sufficient sun to feel ! 

Meantime I buoy myself : no whit my senses reel 

When over me there breaks a billow ; nor, elate 

Too much by some brief taste, I quaff intemperate 

The air, o'ertop breast-high the wave-environment. 

Full well I know, the thing I grasp, as if intent 

To hold, — my wandering wave, — will not be grasped 

at all : 
The solid-seeming grasped, the handful great or small 
Must go to nothing, glide through fingers fast enough ; 
But none the less, to treat liquidity as stuff — 
Though failure — certainly succeeds beyond its aim ; 
Sends head above, far past the thing hands miss, the 

same. 



So with this wash o' the world, wherein life-long we 
drift : 
We push and paddle through the foam by making shift 
To breathe above at whiles, when, after deepest duck 
Down underneath the show, we put forth hand, and pluck 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 77 

At what seems somehow Hke reality, — a soul. 

I catch at this and that to capture and control ; 

Presume I hold a prize ; discover that my pains 

Are run to nought ; my hands are balked ; my head 

regains 
The surface, where I breathe and look about a space. 
The soul that helped me mount ? Swallowed up in the 

race 
O' the tide, come who knows whence, gone gayly who 

knows where ! 
I thought the prize was mine ; I flattered myself there. 
It did its duty, though : I felt it j it felt me ; 
Or where I look about and breathe I should not be. 
The main point is, the false fluidity was bound 
Acknowledge that it frothed o'er substance nowise 

found 
Fluid, but firm and true. Man, outcast, "howls," — at 

rods? — 
If " sent in playful spray a-shivering to his gods ! " 
Childishest childe, man makes thereby no bad exchange. 
Stay with the flat-fish, thou ! We like the upper range 



78 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Where the "gods" live, perchance the demons also 

dwell, 
Where operates a Power, which every throb and swell 
Of human heart invites that human soul approach, 
" Sent " near and nearer still, however " spray " encroach 
On " shivering " flesh below, to altitudes, which gained. 
Evil proves good, wrong right, obscurity explained. 
And " howling " childishness. Whose howl have we to 

thank 
If all the dogs 'gan bark, and puppies whine, till sank 
Each yelper's tail 'twixt legs ? for Huntsman Common- 
sense 
Came to the rescue ; caused prompt thwack of thong 

dispense 
Quiet i' the kennel ; taught that ocean might be blue, 
And rolling, and much more, and yet the soul have, 

too. 
Its touch of God's own flame, which he may so expand 
" AVho measured the waters i' the hollow of his hand," 
That ocean's self shall dry, turn dew-drop in respect 
Of all-triumphant fire, matter with irjtellect 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 79 

Once fairly matched ; bade him who egged on hounds to 

bay 
Go curse i' the poultry-yard his kind : " there let him 

lay " 
The swan's one addled ^gg ; which yet shall put to use, 
Rub breast-bone warm against, so many a sterile goose ! 

LXVIII. 

No, I want sky, not sea ; prefer the larks to shrimps ; 
And never dive so deep but that I get a glimpse 
O' the blue above, a breath of the air around. Elvire, 
I seize — by catching at that melted beryl here, 
The tawny wavelet just has trickled off — Fifine ! 
Did not we two trip forth to just enjoy the scene, — 
The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage 
Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage ; 
Dabble, and there an end, with foam and froth o'er 

face. 
Till suddenly Fifine suggested change of place ? 
Now we taste ether, scorn the wave, and interchange 

apace 



8o FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

No ordinary thoughts, but such as evidence 
The cultivated mind in both ! On what pretence 
Are you and I to sneer at who lent help to hand, 
And gave the lucky lift ? 

LXIX. 

Still sour ? I understand ! 
One ugly circumstance discredits my fair plan, — 
That woman does the work : I waive the help of 

man. 
'' Why should experiment be tried with only waves, 
When solid spars float round? Still some Thalassia 

saves 
Too pertinaciously, as though no Triton, bluff 
As e'er blew brine from conch, were free to help 

enough ! 
Surely, to recognize a man, his mates serve best ! 
Why is there not the same or greater interest 
In the strong spouse as in the pretty partner, pray ? 
Were recognition just your object, as you say, 
Amid this element o' the false." 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 8 1 

LXX. 

We come to terms. 
I need to be proved true j and nothing so confirms 
One's faith in the prime point that one's alive, not dead, 
In all descents to hell whereof I ever read. 
As when a phantom there, male enemy or friend, 
Or merely stranger-shade, is struck, is forced suspend 
His passage: "You that breathe, along with us the 

ghosts ? " 
Here why must it still be a woman that accosts ? 

LXXI. 

Because one woman's worth, in that respect, such 

hairy hosts 
Of the other sex and sort ! Men ? Say you have the 

power 
To make them yours, rule men, throughout life's little 

hour, 
According to the phrase j what follows ? Men you 

make, 
By ruling them, your own : each man for his own sake 

6 



82 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Accepts you as his guide, avails him of what worth 

He apprehends in you to sublimate his earth 

With fire ; content, if so you convoy him through 

night. 
That you shall play the sun, and he, the satellite, 
Pilfer your light and heat and virtue, starry pelf, 
While, caught up by your course, he turns upon him- 
self. 
Women rush into you, and there remain absorbed. 
Beside, 'tis only men completely formed, full-orbed, 
Are fit to follow track, keep pace, illustrate so 
The leader : any sort of woman may bestow 
Her atom on the star, or clod she counts for such ; 
Each little making less bigger by just that much. 
Women grow you, while men depend on you at best. 
And what dependence ! Bring and put him to the 

test. 
Your specimen disci^Dle, a handbreadth separate 
From you, he almost seemed to touch before ! Abate 
Complacency you will, I judge, at what's divulged ! 
Some flabbiness you fixed, some vacancy out-bulged, 



I 



I 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. Zt, 

Some, — much, — nay, all, perhaps, the outward man's 

your work ; 
But inside man ? — find him, wherever he may lurk, 
And where's a touch of you in his true self? 

LXXII. 

I wish 
Some wind would waft this way a glassy bubble-fish 
O' the kind the sea inflates, and show you, once de- 
tached 
From wave — or no; the event is better told than 

watched : 
Still may the thing float free, globose and opaline 
All over, save where just the amethysts combine 
To blue their best, rim-round the sea-flower with a tinge 
Earth's violet never knew ! Well, 'neath that gem-tipped 

fringe 
A head lurks — of a kind — that acts as stomach too j 
Then comes the emptiness which out the water blew. 
So big and belly-like, but, dry of water drained. 
Withers away nine-tenths. Ah, but a tenth remained ! 



84 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

That was the creature's self; no more akin to sea, 
Poor rudimental head and stomach, you agree, 
Than sea's akin to who dips yonder his red edge. 

LXXIII. 

But take the rillet, ends a race o'er yonder ledge 
O' the fissured cliff, to find its fate in smoke below ! 
Disengage that, and ask — what news of life, you know 
It led, that long lone way, through pasture, plain, and 

waste ? 
All's gone to give the sea ! no touch of earth, no taste 
Of air, reserved to tell how rushes used to bring 
The butterfly and bee, and fisher-bird that's king 
O' the purple kind, about the snow-soft, silver-sweet 
Infant of mist and dew ; only these atoms fleet, 
Imbittered evermore, to make the sea one drop 
More big thereby, — if thought keep count where sense 
must stop. 

LXXIV. 

*rhe full-blown ingrate, mere recipient of the brine, 
That takes all, and gives nought, is man : the feminine 



i 
I 

I 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 85 

Rillet, that taking all, and giving nought in turn, 
Goes headlong to her death i' the sea, without concern 
For the old inland life, snow-soft and silver-clear, — 
That's woman, typified from Fifine to Elvira. 

LXXV. 

Then how diverse the modes prescribed to who 

would deal 
With either kind of creature ! 'Tis man you seek to seal 
Your very own ? Resolve, for first step, to discard 
Nine-tenths of what you are ! To make, you must be 

marred ; 
To raise your race, must stoop ; to teach them aught, 

must learn 
Ignorance, meet half way what most you 'hope to spurn 
I' the sequel. Change yourself, dissimulate the thought 
And vulgarize the word, and see the deed be brought 
To look like nothing done with any such intent 
As teach men, — though perchance it teach by accident ! 
So may you master men ; assured that if you show 
One point of mastery, departure from the low 



86 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

And level, — head or heart revolt at long disguise, 

Immurement, stifling soul in mediocrities, — 

If inadvertently a gesture, much more, word. 

Reveal the hunter no companion for the herd. 

His chance of capture's gone. Success means, they may 

snuff. 
Examine, and report, — a brother, sure enough. 
Disports him in brute-guise ; for skin is truly skin. 
Horns, hoofs, are hoofs and horns, and all, outside and 

in. 
Is veritable beast, whom fellow-beasts resigned 
May follow, made a prize in honest pride, behind 
One of themselves, and not creation's upstart lord ! 
Well, there's your prize i' the pound : much joy may it 

afford 
My Indian ! Make survey, and tell me, — was it worth 
You acted part so well, went all-fours upon on earth 
The live-long day, brayed, belled, and all to bring to 

pass 
That stags should deign eat hay when winter stints them 

grass ? 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 87 

LXXVI. 
So much for men, and how disguise may make them 

mind 
Their master. But you have to deal with womankind ? 
Abandon stratagem for strategy ; cast quite 
The vile disguise away ; try truth clean-opposite 
Such creep-and-crawl ; stand forth all man, and, might it 

chance. 
Somewhat of angel too ! — whate'er inheritance, 
Actual on earth, in heaven prospective, be your boast. 
Lay claim to ! Your best self revealed at uttermost — 
That's the wise way o' the strong ! And, e'en should 

falsehood tempt 
Th€ weaker sort to swerve, at least the lie's exempt 
From slur, that's loathlier still, of aiming to debase 
Rather than elevate its object. Mimic grace. 
Not make deformity your mask ! Be sick by stealth, 
Nor traffic with disease, — malingering in health ! 
No more of — " Countrymen, I boast me one like you, — 
My lot, the common strength, the common weakness 

too! 



88 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

I think the thoughts you think; and if I have the 

knack 
Of fitting thoughts to words, you peradventure lack, 
Envy me not the chance, yourselves more fortunate ! 
Many the loaded ship self-sunk through treasure-freight ; 
Many the pregnant brain brings never child to birth ; 
Many the great heart bursts beneath its girdle-girth ! 
Be mine the privilege to supplement defect, 
Give dumbness voice, and let the laboring intellect 
Find utterance in word, or possibly in deed ! 
What though I seem to go before ? 'tis you that lead ! 
I follow what I see so plain, — the general mind 
Projected pillar-wise, flame kindled by the kind, 
Which dwarfs the unit — me — to insignificance ! 
Halt you, I stop forthwith ; proceed, I too advance ! " 

LXXVII. 

Ay, that's the way to take with men you wish to lead, 
Instruct, and benefit Small prospect you succeed 
With women so ! Be all that's great and good and wise, 
August, sublime ; swell out your frog the right ox-size : 



I 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 89 

He's buoyed like a balloon_, to soar, not burst, you'll 

see ! 
The more you prove yourself, less fear the prize will flee 
The captor. Here you start after no pompous stag 
Who condescends be snared, with toss of horn, and brag 
Of bray, and ramp of hoof; you have not to subdue 
The foe through letting him imagine he snares you : 
'Tis rather with — : 

LXXVIII. 

Ah, thanks ! quick ! — where the 
dipping disk 
Shows red against the rise and fall o' the fin ! there frisk 
In shoal the — porpoises ? Dolphins, they shall and 

must 
Cut through the freshening clear; dolphins, my in- 
stance just ! 
'Tis fable, therefore truth : who has to do with these 
Needs never practise trick of going hands and knees 
As beasts require. Art fain the fish to captivate ? 
Gather thy greatness round, Arion ! Stand in state, 



9© FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

As when the banqueting thrilled conscious, — like a rose 
Throughout its hundred leaves at that approach it 

knows 
Of music in the bird, — while Corinth grew one breast 
A-throb for song and thee ; nay, Periander pressed 
The Methymnaean hand, and felt a king indeed, and 

guessed 
How Phoebus' self might give that great mouth of the 

gods 
Such a magnificence of song ! The pillar nods, 
Rocks roof, and trembles door, gigantic, post and jamb. 
As harp and voice rend air, — the shattering dithyramb ! 
So stand thou, and assume the robe that tingles yet 
With triumph ; strike the harp, whose every golden fret- 
Still smoulders with the flame was late at finger's end : 
So, standing on the bench o' the ship, let voice expend 
Thy soul ; sing, unalloyed by meaner mode, thine own. 
The Orthian lay ; then leap from Music's lofty throne 
Into the lowest surge, make fearlessly thy launch ! 
Whatever storm may threat, some dolphin will be 

stanch 1 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 91 

Whatever roughness rage, some exquisite sea-thing 
Will surely rise to save, will bear — palpitating — 
One proud humility of love beneath its load, 
Stem tide, part wave, till both roll on, thy jewelled road ■ 
Of triumph, and the grim o' the gulf grow wonder- 
white 
I' the phosphorescent wake ; and still the exquisite 
Sea-thing stems on, saves still, palpitatingly thus, 
Lands safe at length its love of load at T^enarus, 
True woman-creature ! 

LXXIX. 

Man ? Ah ! would you prove what power 
Marks man ; what fruit his tree may yield beyond the 

sour 
And stinted crab he calls love-apple, which remains 
After you toil and moil your utmost, — all, love gains 
By lavishing manure ? — try quite the other plan ! 
And, to obtain the strong true product of a man, 
Set him to hate a little ! Leave cherishing his root, • 
And rather prune his branch, nip off the pettiest shoot 



92 FIFINB AT THE FAIR. 

Superfluous on his bough ! I promise, you shall learn 
By what grace came the goat, of all beasts else, to 

earn 
Such favor with the god o' the grape : 'twas only he 
Who, browsing on its tops, first stung fertility 
Into the stock's heart, stayed much growth of tendril- 
twine^ 
Some faintish flower, perhaps, but gained the indignant 

wine, 
Wrath of the red press ! Catch the puniest of the 

kind, — 
Man-animalcule, starved body, stunted mind, — 
And, as you nip the blotch 'twixt thumb and finger- 
nail, 
Admire how heaven above and earth below avail 
No jot to soothe the mite, sore at God's prime offence 
In making mites at all j coax from its impotence 
One virile drop of thought or word or deed, by strain 
To propagate for once, — which nature rendered vain. 
Who lets first failure stay, yet cares not to record 
Mistake that seems to cast opprobrium on the Lord ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 93 

Such were the gain from love's best pains ! But let the 

elf 
Be touched with hate because some real man bears him- 
self 
Manlike in body and soul, and, since he lives, must 

thwart 
And furify and set a-fizz this counterpart 
O' the pismire that's surprised to effervescence, if. 
By chance, black bottle come in contact with chalk cliff, 
Acid with alkali ! Then thrice the bulk out blows 
Our insect, does its kind, and cuckoo-spits some rose ! 



\ 



No : 'tis ungainly work, the ruling men, at best ! 
The graceful instinct's right : 'tis women stand con- 
fessed 
Auxiliary, the gain that never goes away, 
Takes nothing, and gives all : Elvire, Fifine, 'tis they 
Convince, — if little, much, no matter ! — one degree 
The more, at least, convince unreasonable me 



94 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

That I am, anyhow, a truth, though all else seem 
And be not : if I dream, at least I know I dream. 
The falsity, beside, is fleeting : I can stand 
Still, and let truth come back, — your steadying touch 

of hand 
Assists me to remain self-centred, fixed amid 
All on the move. Believe in me, at once you bid 
Myself believe, that, since one soul has disengaged 
Mine from the shows of things, so much is fact : I waged 
No foolish warfare, then, with shades, myself a shade. 
Here in the world ; may hope my pains will be repaid ! 
How false things are, I judge ; how changeable, I learn : 
When, where, and how it is I shall see truth return, 
That I expect to know, because Fifine knows me ! . 
How much more, if Elvire ! 

LXXXI. 

" And why not, only she ? 
Since there can be for each one Best, no more, such 

Best, 
For body and mind of him, abolishes the rest 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. ^5 

O' the simply Good and Better. You please select 

Elvire 
To give you this belief in truth ; dispel the fear 
Yourself are, after all, as false as what surrounds ; 
And why not be content ? When we two watched the 

rounds 
The boatman made 'twixt shoal and sandbank yesterday, 
As, at dead slack of tide, he chose to push his way 
With oar and pole across the creek, and reach the isle 
After a world of pains, my word provoked your smile. 
Yet none the less deserved reply : ' 'Twere wiser wait 
The turn o' the tide, and find conveyance for his 

freight — 
How easily — within the ship to purpose moored. 
Managed by sails, not oars ! But no : the man's 

allured 
By liking for the new and hard in his exploit ! 
First come shall serve ! He makes — courageous and 

adroit — 
The merest willow-leaf of boat do duty, bear 
His merchandise across : once over, needs he care 



96 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

If folk arrive by ship six hours hence, fresh and gay ? ' 
No : he scorns commonplace ; affects the unusual way ; 
And good Elvire is moored, with not a breath to flap 
The yards of her ; no lift of ripple to o'erlap 
Keel, much less prow. What care? since here's a 

cockle-shell, 
Fifine, that's taut and crank, and carries just as well 
Such seamanship as yours ! " 

LXXXII. 

Alack, our life is lent, 
From first to last, the whole, for this experiment 
Of proving what I say, — that we ourselves are true ! 
I would there were one voyage, and then no more to do 
But tread the firm land, tempt the uncertain'sea no more ! 
I would we might dispense with change of shore for 

shore 
To evidence our skill, demonstrate — in no dream 
It was we tided o'er the trouble of the stream ! 
I would the steady voyage, and not the fitful trip, — 
Elvire, and not Fifine, — might test our seamanship ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 97 

But why expend one's breath to tell you change of boat 
Means change of tactics too? Come see the same 

afloat 
To-morrow, all the change, new stowage fore and aft 
O' the cargo ; then to cross requires new sailor-craft ! 
To-day one step from stern to bow keeps boat in trim : 
To-morrow some big stone — or woe to boat and him ! — 
Must ballast both. That man stands for Mind, para- 
mount 
Throughout the adventure : ay, howe'er you make 

account, 
'Tis mind that navigates ; skips over, twists between 
The bales i' the boat; now gives importance to the 

mean. 
And now abates the pride of life, accepts all fact, 
Discards^ all fiction ; steers Fifine, and cries, in the act, 
" Thou art so bad, and yet so delicate a brown ! 
Wouldst tell no end of lies : I talk to smile or frown ! 
Wouldst rob me : do men blame a squirrel, lithe and 

sly. 
For pilfering the nut she adds to hoard ? Nor I. 

7 



98 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

Elvire is true as truth, honesty's self, alack ! 

The worse ! too safe the ship, the transport there and 

back 
Too certain ! one may loll and lounge and leave the 

helm, 
Lejt wind and tide do work : no fear that waves o'er- 

whelm 
The steady-going bark, as sure to feel her way 
Blind-fold across, reach land, next year as yesterday ! 
How can I but suspect the true feat were to slip 
Down side, transfer myself to cockle-shell from ship, 
And try if, trusting to sea-tracklessness, I class 
With those around whose breast grew oak and triple 

brass ; 
Who dreaded no degree of death, but with dry eyes 
Surveyed the turgid main and its monstrosities, 
And rendered futile, so, the prudent Power's decree 
Of separate earth and disassociating sea? 
Since how is it observed, if impious vessels leap 
Across, and tempt a thing they should not touch, — the 

deep ? 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 99 

(See Horace to the boat, wherein, for Athens bound, 
When Virgil must embark — Jove keep him safe and 

sound ! — 
The poet bade his friend start on the watery road, 
Much re- assured by this so comfortable ode.") 

LXXXIII. 

Then never grudge my poor Fifine her compliment ! 
The rakish craft could slip her moorings in the tent, 
And, hoisting every stitch of spangled canvas, steer 
Through divers rocks and shoals ; in fine, deposit here 
Your Virgil of a spouse in Attica ; yea, thrid 
The mob of men, select the special virtue hid 
In him, forsooth, and say, or rather smile so sweet, 
" Of all the multitude, you — I prefer to cheat ! 
Are you for Athens bound ? I can perform the trip, 
Shove little pinnace off, while yon superior ship, 
The Elvire, refits in port ! " So off we push from beach 
Of Pornic Town : and lo, ere eye can wink, we reach 
The Long Walls, and I prove that Athens is no dream ; 
For there the temples rise ! they are 3 they nowise seem ! 



100 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

Earth is not all one lie, this truth attests me true ! 
Thanks, therefore, to Fifine ! Elvire, I'm back with 

you! 
Share in the memories ! Embark I trust we shall 
Together some fine day, and so, for good and all. 
Bid Pornic Town adieu j then just the strait to cross, 
And we reach harbor, safe, in lostephanos ! 

LXXXIV. 

How quickly night comes ! Lo ! already 'tis the 

land 
Turns sea-like : overcrept by gray, the plains expand, 
Assume significance j while ocean dwindles, shrinks 
. Into a pettier bound : its plash and plaint, methinks, 
Six steps away, how both retire, as if their part 
Were played, another force were free to prove her art, 
Protagonist in turn ! Are you unterrified ? 
All false, all fleeting too ! And nowhere things abide. 
And everywhere we strain that things should stay, — the 

one 
Truth, tliat ourselves are true I 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. lOi 

LXXXV. 

A word, and I have done. 
Is it not just our hate of falsehood, fleetingness. 
And the mere part things play, that constitutes express 
The inmost charm of this Fifine and all her tribe ? 
Actors ! We also act \ but only they inscribe 
Their style and title so, and preface — only they — 
Performance with, "A lie is all we do or say." 
Wherein but there can be the attraction, Falsehood's 

bribe. 
That wins so surely o'er to Fifine and her tribe 
The liking, nay, the love, of who hate Falsehood most, 
Except that these alone of mankind make their boast, 
" Frankly, we simulate ! " To feign means — to have 

grace. 
And so get gratitude ! This ruler of the race, 
Crowned, sceptred, stoled to suit, — 'tis not that you 

detect 
The cobbler in the king, but that he makes effect 
By seeming the reverse of what you know to be 
The man, the mind, whole form, fashion, and quality. 



I02 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Mistake his false for true one minute, — there's an end 
Of the admiration ! Truth we grieve at or rejoice : 
'Tis only falsehood, plain in gesture, look, and voice, 
That brings the praise desired, since profit comes 

thereby. 
The histrionic truth is in the natural lie. 
Because the man who wept the tears was, all the time, 
Happy enough ; because the other man, a-grime 
With guilt, was, at the least, as white as I and you ; 
Because the timid type of bashful maidhood, who 
Starts at her own pure shade, already numbers seven 
Born babes, and in a month will turn their odd to even ; 
Because the saucy prince would prove, could you unfurl 
Some yards of wrap, a meek and meritorious girl, — 
Precisely as you see success attained by each 
O' the mimes, do you approve, not foolishly impeach 
The falsehood ! 



That's the first o' the truths found : all things, slow 
Or quick i' the passage, come at last to that, you know ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 103 

Each has a false outside, whereby a truth is forced 
To issue from within : truth, falsehood, are divorced 
By the excepted eye, at the rare season, for 
The happy moment. Life means — learning to abhor 
The false, and love the true, — truth treasured snatch by 

snatch, 
Waifs counted at their worth. And when with .strays 

they match 
I' the party-colored world; when under foul shines fair, 
And truth, displayed i' the point, flashes forth every- 
where 
I' the circle, manifest to soul, though hid from sense, 
And no obstruction more affects this confidence; 
When faith is ripe for sight, — why, reasonably, then 
Comes the great clearing-up. Wait threescore years and 
ten! 

LXXXVII. 

Therefore I prize stage-play, the honest cheating; 
thence 
The impulse pricked, when fife and drum bade Fair 
commence, 



104 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

To bid you trip and skip, link arm in arm with me, 
Like husband and like wife, and so together see 
The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage 
Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage. 
And if I started thence upon abstruser themes — 
Well, *twas a dream, pricked too ! 

LXXXVIII. 

A poet never dreams : 
We prose-folk always do : we miss the proper duct 
For thoughts on things unseen, which stagnate and 

obstruct 
The system, therefore : mind, sound in a body sane, 
Keeps thoughts apart from facts, and to one flowing 

vein 
Confines its sense of that which is not, but might be. 
And leaves the rest alone.' What ghosts do poets see ? 
What demons fear ? what man or thing misapprehend ? 
Unchoked, the channel's flush, the fancy's free to spend 
Its special self aright in manner, time, and place. 
Never believe that who create the busy race 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 105 

O' the brain, bring poetry to birth, such act performed, 
Feel trouble them, the same, such residue as warmed 
My prosy blood this morn, — intrusive fancies, meant 
For outbreak and escape by quite another vent ! 
Whence follows, that, asleep, my dreamings oft exceed 
The bound. But you shall hear. 

LXXXIX. 

I smoked. The webs o' the weed, 
With many a break i' the mesh, were floating to re-form 
Cupola-wise above ; chased thither by soft, warm 
Inflow of air without ; since I, — of mind to muse, to 

clench 
The gain of soul and body got by their noon-day 

dreneh 
In sun and sea, — I flung both frames o' the window 

wide. 
To soak my body still, and let soul soar beside. 
In came the country sounds and sights and smells, — 

that fine 
Sharp needle in the nose from our fermenting wine ! 



lo6 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

In came a dragon-fly with whir and stir, then out, 
Off, and away ; in came — kept coming, rather, pout 
Succeeding smile, and take-away still close on give — 
One loose long creeper-branch, tremblingly sensitive 
To risk, which blooms and leaves, — each leaf tongue- 
broad, each bloom 
Mid-finger-deep, — must run by prying in the room 
Of one who loves and grasps and spoils and speculates. 
All, so far, plain enough to sight and sense : but 

weights. 
Measures, and numbers, — ah ! could one apply such 

test 
To other visitants that came at no request 
Of who kept open house ; to fancies manifold 
From this four-cornered world, the memories new and 

old, 
The antenatal prime experience — what know I ? — 
The initiatory love preparing us to die, — 
Such were a crowd to count, a sight to see, a prize 
To turn to profit, were but fleshly ears and eyes 
Able to cope with those o' the spirit ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 1 07 

XC. 

Therefore, — since 
Thought hankers after speech, while no speech may 

evince 
Feeling like music, — mine, o'erburthened with each gift 
From every visitant, at last resolved to shift 
Its burthen to the back of some musician dead 
And gone, who, feeling once what I feel now, instead 
Of words, sought sounds, and saved forever, in the same, 
Truth that escapes prose ; nay, puts poetry to shame. 
One reads the note^ one strikes the keyj one bids record 
The instrument, — thanks for the veritable word ! 
And not in vain one cries, " O dead and gone away, 
Assist who struggles yet, thy strength become my stay. 
Thy record serve as well to register, — I felt 
And knew thus much of truth ! With me must knowl- 
edge melt 
Into surmise and doubt and disbelief, unless 
Thy music re-assure, — I gave no idle guess, 
But gained a certitude myself may hardly keep ! 
What care ? since round is piled a monumental heap 



Io8 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Of music that consen^es the assurance thou as well 
Wast certam of the same ! — thou, master of the spell, 
Mad'st moonbeams marble, didst record what other men 
Feel only to forget ! " Who was it helped me, then ? 
What master's work first came responsive to my call, 
Found my eye, fixed my choice ? 

xci. 

Why, Schumann's " Carnival " ! 
Choice chiming in, you see, exactly with the sounds 
And sights of yester-eve, when, going on my rounds, 
Where both roads join the bridge, I heard across the 

dusk 
Creak a slow caravan, and saw arrive the husk 
O' the spice-nut, which peeled off this morning, and dis- 
played 
'Twixt tree and tree a tent whence the red pennon 

made 
Its vivid reach for home and ocean-idleness, 
And where, my heart surmised, at that same moment, — 
yes, — 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 199 

Tugging her tricot on, yet tenderly, lest stitch 
Announce the crack of doom, reveal disaster which 
Our Pornic's modest stock of merceries in vain 
Were ransacked to retrieve, — there, cautiously a-strain, 
(My heart surmised) must crouch in that tent's corner, 

curved 
Like spring-month's russet moon, some beauty fate 

reserved 
To give me once again the electric snap and spark 
That prove, when finger finds out finger in the dark 
O' the world, there's fire and life and truth there, link 

but hands, 
And pass the secret on ! till, link by link, expands 
The circle, lengthens out the chain j and one embrace 
Of high with low is found uniting the whole race, — 
Not simply you and me and our Fifine, but all 
The world : the Fair expands into the Carnival, 
And Carnival again to — Ah, but that's my dream ! 

XCII. 

I somehow played the piece ; remarked on each old 
theme 



no FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

V the new dress j saw how food o' the soul, the stuff 

that's made 
To furnish man with thought and feeling, is purveyed 
Substantially the same from age to age, with change 
Of the outside only for successive feasters. Range 
The banquet-room o' the world, from the dim farthest 

head 
O' the table to its foot, for you and me bespread 
This merry morn, we find sufficient fare, I trow. 
But novel ? Scrape away the sauce, and taste, below, 
The verity o' the viand, you shall perceive there went 
To board-head just the dish which other condiment 
Makes palatable now : guests came, sat down, fell to, 
Rose up, wiped mouth, went way, — lived, died, — and 

never knew 
That generations yet should, seeking sustenance. 
Still find the selfsame fare, with somewhat to enhance 
Its flavor in the kind of cooking. As with hates 
And loves and fears and hopes, so with what emulates 
The same, expresses hates, loves, fears, and hopes in art: 
The forms> the themes, — no one without its counterpart 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. Ill 

Ages ago ; no one, but, mumbled the due time 

I' the mouth of the eater, needs be cooked again in 

rhyme, 
Dished up anew in paint, sauce-smothered fresh in 

sound, 

I ' 

\ To suit the wisdom-tooth, just cut, of the age, that's 

found 
With gums obtuse to gust and smack which relished so 
The meat o' the meal folks made some fifty years ago. 
But don't suppose the new was able to efface 
The old without a struggle, a pang ! The common- 
place 
Stiir clung about his heart long after all the rest 
O' the natural man, at eye and ear, was caught^ con- 
fessed 
The charm of change, although wry lip and wrinkled 

nose 
Owned ancient virtue more conducive to repose 
Than modern nothing roused to something by some 

shred 
Of pungency, perchance garlic in amber's stead ? 



112 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

And so on, till, one day, another age, by due 

Rotation, pries, sniffs, smacks, discovers old is new, 

And sauce our sires pronounced insipid proves again 

Sole piquant, and resumes its titillating reign. 

With music, most of all the arts, since change is there 

The law, and not the lapse : the precious means the rare, 

And not the absolute in all good save surprise. 

So I remarked upon our Schumann's victories 

Over the commonplace, how faded phrase grew fine, 

And palled perfection, piqued, upstartled by that brine, 

His pickle, bit the mouth and burnt the tongue aright, 

Beyond the merely good no longer exquisite ; 

Then took things as I found, and thanked without demur 

The pretty piece, — played through that movement, you 

prefer. 
Where dance and shuffle past, he scolding while she 

pouts. 
She canting while he calms, in those eternal bouts 
Of age, the dog — with youth, the cat — by rose- 
festoon 
Tied teasingly forever, — Columbine, Pantaloon, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. II3 

She, toe-tips and staccato^ — legato, shakes his poll 
And shambles in pursuit, the senior. Fi la folk I 
Lie to him ! get his gold, and pay its price ! begin 
Your trade betimes, nor wait till you've wed Harlequin, 
And need, at the week's end, to play the duteous wife. 
And swear you still love slaps and leapings more than 

life ! 
Pretty ! I say. 

XCIII. 

And so I somehow-nohow played 
The whole o' the pretty piece ; and then — whatever 

weighed 
My eyes down, furled the films about my wits, — sup- 
pose. 
The morning-bath, — the sweet monotony of those 
Three keys, flat, flat and flat, never a sharp at all j 
Or else the brain's fatigue, forced even here to fall 
Into the same old track, and recognize the shift 
From old to new, and back to old again, and, swift 
Or slow, no matter, still the certainty of change. 
Conviction we shall find the false, where'er we range, 



114 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

In art no less than nature, — or what if wrist were 

numb, 
And over-tense the mucle, abductor of the thumb. 
Taxed by those tenths' and twelfths' unconscionable 

stretch ? 
Howe'er it came to pass, I soon was far to fetch, — 
Gone off in company with Music ! 

xciv. 

Whither bound 
Except for Venice ? She it was, by instinct found, 
CarniVal-country proper, who, far below the perch 
Where I was pinnacled, showed, opposite, Mark's 

Church, 
And, underneath, Mark's Square, with those two lines 

of street, 
Proairatie-sideSj each leading to my feet ; 
Since I gazed from above, however I got there. 

xcv. 
And what I gazed upon was a prodigious Fair, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 115 

Concourse immense of men and women, crowned or 

casqued, 
Turbaned or tiar'd, wreathed, plumed, hatted or wigged, 

but masked, — 
Always masked, — only, how ? No face-shape, beast 

or bird, 
Nay, fish and reptile even, but some one had preferred, 
From out its frontispiece, feathered or scaled or curled, 
To make the vizard whence himself should view the 

world. 
And where *thjf world believed himself was manifest. 
Yet, when you came to look, mixed up among the 

rest 
More funnily by far were masks to imitate 
Humanity's mishap : the wrinkled brow, bald pate. 
And rheumy eyes of Age, peaked chin and parchment 

chap, 
Were signs of day-work done, and wage-time near, — 

mishap 
Merely ; but Age reduced to simple greed and guile, 
Worn apathet'ic else as some smooth slab, erewhile 



Il6 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

A clear-cut man-at-arms i' the pavement, till foot's tread 
Effaced the sculpture, left the stone you saw instead, — 
Was not that terrible beyond the mere uncouth ? 
Well, and perhaps the next revolting you was Youth, 
Stark ignorance and crude conceit, half smirk, half stare. 
On that frank fool-face, gay beneath its head of hair 
Which covers nothing. 



These, you are to understand, 
Were the mere hard and sharp distinctions. On each 

hand, 
I soon became aware, flocked the infinitude 
Of passions, loves and hates, man pampers till his 

mood 
Becomes himself, the whole sole face we name him by, 
Nor want denotement else, if age or youth supply 
The rest of him : old, young, — classed creature : in the 

main 
A love, a hate, a hope, a fear, each soul a-strain 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 1 17 

Some one way through the flesh, — the face the evidence 
O' the soul at work inside ; and, all the more intense, 
So much the more grotesque. 



" Why should each soul be tasked 
Some one way, by one love or else one hate ? " I asked ; 
When it occurred to me, from all these sights beneath 
There rose not any sound : a crowd, yet dumb as 
death ! ' 



But I knew why. (Propose a riddle, and 'tis solved 
Forthwith — in dream !) They spoke ; but — since on 

me devolved 
To see, and understand by sight — the vulgar speech 
Might be dispensed with. • " He who cannot see must 

reach 
As best he may the truth of men by help of words 
They please to speak ; must fare at will of who affords 



Il8 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

The banquet : " so I thought. " Who sees not, hears, 

and so 
Gets to believe : myself it is, that, seeing, know, 
And, knowing, can dispense with voice and vanity 
Of speech. What hinders then, that, drawing closer, I 
Put privilege to use, see and know better still 
These sifjiulachra, taste the profit of my skill, . 
Down in the midst ? " 



And plumb I pitched into the square, — 
A groundling like the rest. What think you happened 

there ? 
Precise the contrary of what one would expect ! 
For — whereas all the more monstrosities deflect 
From nature and the type the more yourself approach 
Their precinct — here I found brutality encroach 
Less on the human, lie the lightlier as I looked 
The nearer on these faces that seemed but now so 

crooked 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. ' II9 

And clawed away from God's prime purpose. They 

diverged 
A little from the type, but somehow rather urged 
To pity than disgust : the prominent before 
Now dwindled into mere distinctness — nothing more. 
Still, at first sight, stood forth undoubtedly the fact 
Some deviation was : in no one case there lacked 
The certain sign and mark, say hint, say trick of lip 
Or twist of nose, that proved a fault in workmanship, 
Change in the prime design, some hesitancy here 
And there, which checked man's make, and let the beast 

appear j 
But that was all. 

c. 

All ; yet enough to bid each tongue 
Lie in abeyance still. They talked, themselves among, 
Of themselves, to themselves : I saw the mouths at play, 
The gesture that enforced, the eye that strove to say 
The same thing as the voice, and seldom gained its 

point : 
That this was so, I saw j but all seemed out of joint 



120 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

V the vocal medidm 'twixt the world and me. I gained 

Knowledge by notice, not by giving ear j attained 

To truth by what men seemed, not said: to me one 

glance 
Was worth whole histories of noisy utterance ; 
At least, to me in dream. 

CI. 

And presently I found, 
That, just as ugliness had withered, so unwound 
Itself, and perished off, repugnance to what wrong 
Might linger yet i' the make of man. My will was strong 
I' the matter : I could pick and choOse, project my weight, 
(Remember how we saw the boatman trim his freight !) 
Determine to observe, or manage to escape, 
Or make divergency assume another shape 
By shift of point of sight in me the observer : thus 
Corrected, added to, subtracted from, discuss 
Each variant quality, and brute-beast touch was turned 
Into mankind's safeguard ! Force, guile, were arms which 
earned 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 121 

My praise, not blame at all ! for we must learn to live, 
Case-hardened at all points, not bare and sensitive, 
But plated for defence, nay, furnished for attack, 
With spikes at the due place, that neither front nor back 
May suffer in that squeeze with nature we find — life. 
Are we not here to learn the good of peace through 

strife. 
Of love through hate, and reach knowledge by igno- 
rance ? 
Why, those are helps thereto which late we eyed 

askance. 
And nicknamed unaware ! Just so, a sword we call 
Superfluous, and cry out against, at festival : 
Wear it in time of war, its clink and clatter grate 
O' the ear to purpose then ! 

CII. 

I found one must abate 
One's scorn of the soul's case, distinct from the soul's 

self, — 
Which is the centre-drop ; whereas the pride in pelf, 



122 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

The lust to seem the thing it cannot be, the greed 

For praise, and all the rest seen outside, — these, indeed, 

Are the hard polished cold crystal environment 

Of those strange orbs unearthed i' the Druid temple, 

meant 
For divination (so the learned lean to think). 
Wherein you may admire one dew-drop roll and wink, 
All unaffected by. — quite alien to — what sealed 
And saved it long ago : though how it got congealed 
I shall not give a guess ; nor how, by power occult, 
The solid surface-shield was outcome and result 
Of simple dew at work to save itself amid 
The unwatery force around : protected thus, dew slid 
Safe through all opposites impatient to absorb 
Its spot of life, and lasts forever in the orb 
We now from hand to hand pass with impunity. 

cm. 
And the delight wherewith I watch this crowd must be 
Akin to that which crowns the chemist when he winds 
Thread up and up till clew be fairly clutched ; unbinds 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 1 23 

The composite ; ties fast the simple to its mate ; 
And, tracing each effect back to its cause, elate, 
Constructs in fancy, from the fewest primitives, 
The complex and complete, all diverse life, that lives 
Not only in beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect, but 
The very plants and earths and ores. Just so I glut 
My hunger both to be and know the thing I am 
By contrast with the thing I am not ; so, through sham 
And outside, I arrive at inmost real, probe 
And prove how the nude form obtained the checkered 
robe. 

CIV. 

— Experience I am glad to master soon or late. 
Here, there, and everywhere i' the world, without debate ; 
Only in Venice why ? What reason for Mark's Square 
Rather than Timbuctoo ? 

cv. 

And I became aware, 
Scarcely the word escaped my lips, that swift ensued 
In silence and by stealth, and yet with certitude, 



124 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

A formidable change of the amphitheatre 

Which held the Carnival ; although the human stir 

Continued just the same amid that shift of scene. 

cvi. 
For as on edifice of cloud i' the gray and green 
Of evening, — built about some glory of the west 
To barricade the sun's departure, — manifest, 
He plays, pre-eminently gold, gilds vapor, crag, and crest 
Which bend in rapt suspense abov© the act and deed 
They cluster round and keep their very own, nor heed 
The world at watch ; while we, breathlessly at the base 
O' the castellated bulk, note momently the mace 
Of night fall here, fall there, bring change with every 

blow, 
Alike to sharpened shaft and broadened portico 
I' the structure j heights and depths, beneath the leaden 

stress, 
Crumble and melt and mix together, coalesce. 
Re-form, but sadder still, subdued yet more and more 
By every fresh defeat, till wearied eyes need pore 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. T25 

No longer on the dull impoverished decadence 
Of all that pomp of pile in towering evidence 
So lately : — 



Even thus, nor otherwise, meseemed 
That if I fixed my gaze a while on what I dreamed 
Was Venice' Square, Mark's Church, the scheme was 

straight unschemed, 
A subtle something had its way within the heart 
Of each and every house I watched, with counterpart 
Of tremor through the front and outward face, until 
Mutation was at end : impassive and stock-still 
Stood now the ancient house, grown, — new is scarce the 

phrase, 
Since older, in a sense, — altered to — what i' the 

ways 
Ourselves are won't to see, coerced by city, town, 
Or village, anywhere i' the world, pace up or down 
Europe ! In all the maze, no single tenement 
I saw, but I could claim acquaintance with ! 



126 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

CVIII. 

There went 
Conviction to my soul, that what I took of late 
For Venice was the world ; its Carnival the state 
Of mankind, masquerade in life-long permanence 
For all time, and no one particular feast-day. Whence 
'Twas easy to infer what meant my late disgust 
At the brute-pageant, each grotesque of greed and lust 
And idle hate, and love as impotent for good. 
When from my pride of place I passed the interlude 
In critical review ; and what the wonder that ensued, 
When, from such pinnacled pre-eminence, I found 
Somehow the proper goal for wisdom was the ground, 
And not the sky, — so, slid sagaciously betimes 
Down heaven's baluster-rope, to reach the mob of mimes 
And mummers ; whereby came discovery there was just 
Enough and not too much of hate, love, greed, and lust, 
Could one discerningly but hold the balance, shift 
The weight from scale to scale, do justice to the drift 
Of nature, and explain the glories by the shames 
Mixed up in man, one stuff miscalled by different names. 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 12 7 

According to what stage i' the process turned his rough, 
Even as I gazed, to smooth, — only get close enough ! — 
What was all this except the lesson of a life ? 

cix. 
And consequent upon the learning how from strife 
Grew peace, — from evil, good, — came knowledge, that, 

to get 
Acquaintance with the way o' the world, we must nor 

fret 
Nor fume on altitudes of self-sufficiency, 
But bid a frank farewell to what — we think — should be. 
And, with as good a grace, welcome what is — we find. 

ex. 

Is — for the hour, observe! Since something to my 
mind 
Suggested soon the fancy, nay, certitude, that change. 
Never suspending touch, continued to derange 
What architecture, we, walled up within the cirque 
O' the world, consider fixed as fate, not fairy-work. 



128 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

For those were temples, sure, which tremblingly grew 

blank 
From bright, then broke afresh in triumph : ah ! but 

sank 
As soon ; for liquid change through artery and vein 
O' the very marble wound its way ! And first a stain 
Would startle and offend amid the glory ; next 
Spot swift succeeded spot, but found me less perplexed 
By potents ; then, as 'twere, a sleepiness soft stole 
Over the stately fane, and shadow sucked the whole 
Facade into itself, made uniformly earth 
What was a piece of heaven ; till, lo ! a second birth, 
And the veil broke away because of something new 
Inside, that pushed to gain an outlet, paused in view 
At last, and proved a growth of stone or brick or wood, 
Which, alien to the aim o' the Builder, somehow stood 
The test, could satisfy, if not the early race 
For whom he built, at least our present populace, 
Who must not bear the blame for what, blamed, proves 

mishap 
Of the Artist : his work gone, another fills the gap, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 129 

Serves the prime purpose so. Undoubtedly there spreads 
Building around, above, which makes men lift their 

heads 
To look at, or look through, or look, for aught I care, 
Over, — if only up it is, not down, they stare, 
" Commercing with the skies," and not the pavement in 

the square. 

CXI. 

But are they only temples that subdivide, collapse. 
And tower again, transformed ? Academies, perhaps ! 
Domes where dwells Learning, seats of Science, bower 

and hall 
Which house Philosophy, — do these, too, rise and fall, 
Based though foundations be on steadfast mother-earth, 
With no chimeric claim to supermundane birth ; 
No boast, that, dropped from cloud, they did not grow 

from ground ? 
Why, these fare worst of all ! these vanish, and are found 
Nowhere, by who tasks eye some twice within his term 
Of threescore years and ten for tidings what each germ 



I30 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Has burgeoned out into, whereof the promise stunned 
His ear with such acclaim, — praise-payment to refund 
The praises, never doubt, some twice before they die 
Whose days are long i' the land. 

CXII. 

Alack, Philosophy ! 
Despite the chop and change, diminished or increased, 
Patched up and plastered o'er. Religion stands at least 
I' the temple-type. But thou ? Here gape I, all agog 
These thirty years, to learn how tadpole turns to frog ; 
And thrice at least have gazed with mild astonishment, 
As, skyward up and up, some fire-new fabric sent 
Its challenge to mankind, that, clustered underneath, — 
They hear the word and straight believe, ay, in the teeth 
O' the Past, clap hands, and hail triumphant Truth's out- 
break, — 
Tadpole-frog-theory propounded past mistake ! 
In vain ! A something ails the edifice : it bends, 
It bows, it buries. . . . Haste ! cry " Heads below " to 
friends ; 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 131 

But have no fear they find, when smother shall subside, 
Some substitution perk with unabated pride 
I' the predecessor's place ! 

CXIII. 

No : the one voice which failed 
Never, the preachment's coigne of vantage nothing 

ailed, — 
. That had the luck to lodge i' the house not made with 

hands ! 
And all it preached was this : " Truth builds upon the 

sands, 
Though stationed on a rockj and so her work decays. 
And so she builds afresh, with like result. Nought - 

stays 
But just the fact that Truth not only is, but fain 
Would have men know she needs must be, by each so 

plain 
Attempt to visibly inhabit where they dwell." 
Her works are work, while she is she : that work does 

well 



132 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Which lasts mankind their hfetime through, and lets 

believe 
One generation more, that, though sand run througli 

sieve, 
Yet earth now reached is rock, and vi^hat we moderns 

find 
Erected here is Truth, who, 'stablished to her mind 
I' the fulness of the days, will never change in show 
More than in substance erst : men thought they knew \ 

we know ! 

cxiv. 
Do you, my generation ? Well, let the blocks prove 

mist 
I' the main enclosure ; church and college, if they list. 
Be something for a time, and every thing anon, 
And any thing a while, as fit is off or on, 
Till they grow nothing, soon to re-appear no less ' 
As something, — shape reshaped, till out of shapeless- 

ness 
Come shape again as sure ! no doubt, or round or square 
Or polygon its front, some building will be there, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 133 

Do duty in that nook o' the wall o' the world where once 
The Architect saw fit precisely to ensconce 
College or church, and bid such bulwark guard the line 
O' the barrier round about, — humanity's confine. 

cxv. 
Leave watching change at work i' the greater scale, 
on these 
The main supports, and turn to their interstices 
Filled up by fabrics too, less costly and less rare, 
Yet of importance, yet essential to the Fair 
They help to circumscribe, instruct, and regulate ! 
See where each booth-front boasts, in letters small or 

great. 
Its specialty, proclaims its privilege to stop 
A breach beside the best ! 

CXVI. 

Here History keeps shop ; 
Tells how past deeds were done, so and not otherwise : — 
" Man, hold truth evermore ! forget the early lies ! " 



134 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

There sits Morality, demure behind her stall, 

Dealing out life and death : " This is the thing to 
call 

Right j and this other, wrong : thus think, thus do, thus 
say, 

Thus joy, thus suffer ! — not to-day as yesterday: 

Yesterday's doctrine dead, this only shall endure ! 

Obey its voice, and live ! " — enjoins the dame demure. 

While Art gives flag to breeze, bids drum beat, trumpet 
blow, 

Inviting eye and ear to yonder raree-show. 

Up goes the canvas, hauled to height of pole. I think 

We know the way — long lost, late learned — to paint ! 
A wink 

Of eye, and, lo, the pose ! the statue on its plinth ! 

How could we moderns miss the heart o' the laby- 
rinth 

Perversely all these years, permit the Greek seclude 

His secret till to-day ? And here's another feud 

Now happily composed : inspect this quartet-score ! 

Got long past melody, no word has Music more 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 135 

To say to mortal man ! But is the bard to be 
Behindhand ? Here's his book ; and now perhaps you 

see, 
At length, what poetry can do ! 

CXVII. 

Why, that's stability 
Itself, that change on change we sorrowfully saw 
Creep o'er the prouder piles ! - We acquiesced in law 
When the fine gold grew dim i' the temple j when the 

brass 
Which pillared that so brave abode where Knowledge was 
Bowed and resigned the trust : but bear all this caprice, 
Harlequinade where swift to birth succeeds decease 
Of hue at every turn 0' the tinsel-flag which flames 
While Art holds booth in Fair ? Such glories chased by 

shames 
Like these distract beyond the solemn and august 
Procedure to decay, evanishment in dust, 
Of those marmoreal domes, — above vicissitude, 
We used to hope ! 



136 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, 

CXVIII. 
" So all is change, in fine," pursued 
The preachment to a pause. When — " All is perma- 
nence ! " 
Returned a voice. Within ? without t No matter 

whence 
The explanation came ; for, understand, I ought 
To simply say — I saw, each thing I say I thought. 
Since ever as, unrolled, the strange scene-picture grew 
Before me, sight flashed first, though mental comment too 
Would follow in a trice, come hobblingly to halt. 

cxix. 
So what did I see next, but, — much as when the vault 
I' the west, — wherein we watch the vapory, manifold 
Transfiguration, — tired would turn to rest, — behold, 
Peak reconciled to base, dark ending feud with bright, 
The multiform subsides, is found the definite. 
Contrasting lives and strifes, where battle they i' the 

blank 
Severity of death and peace, for which we thank 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 137 

One cloud that comes to quell the concourse, fall at last 
Into a shape befits the close of things, and cast 
Palpably o'er vexed earth heaven's mantle of repose ? 



Just so, in Venice' Square, that things were at the close 
Was signalled to my sense ; for I perceived arrest 
O' the change all round about. As if some impulse 

pressed 
Each gently into each, what was distinctness late 
Grew vague, and, line from line no longer separate, 
No matter what the style, edifice — shall I say, 
Died into edifice ? I find no simpler way 
Of saying how, without or dash or shock or trace 
Of violence, I found unity in the place 
Of temple, tower, and hall and house and hut, — one 

blank 
Severity of death and peace ; to which they sank 
Resigned enough, till — ah ! conjecture, I beseech, 
What special blank did they agree to, all and each ? 



138 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

What common shape was that wherein they mutely 

merged 
Likes and disUkes of form, so plain before ? 



I urged 
Your step this way, prolonged our path of enterprise 
To where we stand at last, in order that your eyes 
Might see the very thing, and save my tongue describe 
The Druid monument which fronts you. Could I bribe 
Nature to come in aid, illustrate what I mean, 
What wants there she would lend to solemnize the 
scene ? 

CXXII. 

How does it strike you, this construction gaunt and 

gray? 
Sole object, these piled stones, that gleam unground 

away 
By twilight's hungry jaw, which champs fine all beside 
I' the solitary waste we grope through. Oh, no guide, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 139 

However, need we now to reach the monstrous door 
Of granite ! Take my word, the deeper you explore 
That caverned passage, filled with fancies to the brim, 
The less will you approve the adventure ! such a 

grim 
Bar-sinister soon blocks abrupt your path, and ends 
All with a cold dread shape, — shape whereon Learning 

spends 
Labor, and leaves the text obscurer for the gloss ; 
While Ignorance reads right, — recoiling from that 

Cross ! 
Whence came the mass and mass, strange quality of 

stone 
Unquarried anywhere i' the region round ? Unknown ! 
Just as unknown how such enormity could be 
Conveyed by land, or else transported over sea, 
And laid in order, so, precisely each on each 
As you and I would build a grotto where the beach 
Sheds shell, — to last an hour : this building lasts from 

age 
To age the same. But why ? 



I40 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. * 

CXXIII. 

Ask Learning ! I engage 
You get a prosy wherefore shall help you to advance 
In knowledge just as much as helps you Ignorance 
Surmising, in the mouth of peasant lad or lass, — 
" I heard my father say he understood it was 
A building people built as soon as earth was made 
Almost, because they might forget (they were afraid) 
Earth did not make itself, but came of Somebody. 
They labored that their work might last, and show 

thereby 
He stays, while we and earth and all things come and 

go- 
Come whence? Go whither? That, when come and 

gone, we know. 
Perhaps, but not while earth and all things need our best 
Attention : we must wait and die to know the rest. 
Ask, if that's true, what use in setting up the pile ? 
To make one fear and hope ; remind us, all the while 
We come and go, outside there's Somebody that stays, — 
A circumstance which ought to make us mind our ways ; 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 141 

Because, — whatever end we answer by this life, — 
Next time, best chance must be for who with toil and 

strife 
Manages now to live most like what he was meant 
Become : since who succeeds so far, 'tis evident. 
Stands foremost on the file ; who fails has less to hope 
From new promotion. That's the rule, — with even a 

rope 
Of mushrooms like this rope I dangle ! those that 

grew 
Greatest and roundest, all in life they had to do. 
Gain a reward, a grace they never dreamed, I think ; 
Since, outside white as milk, and inside black as ink, 
They go to the Great House to make a dainty dish 
For Don and Donna j while this basket-load, I wish 
Well off my arm, it breaks, — no starveling of the heap 
But had his share of dew, his proper length of sleep 
I' the sunshine : yet, of all, the outcome is, — this queer 
Cribbed quantity of dwarfs which burthen basket here 
Till I reach home ; 'tis there, that, having run their rigs, 
They end their earthly race, are flung as food for pigs. 



142 ' FIFINE A T THE FAIR. 

Any more use I see ? Well, you must know, there 

lies 
Something, the cure says, that points to mysteries 
Above our grasp : a huge stone pillar, once upright, 
Now laid at length, half lost, — discreetly shunning sight 
I' the bush and brier, because of stories in the air, — 
Hints what it signified, and why was stationed theire, 
Once on a time. In vain the cure tasked his lungs ; 
Showed, in a preachment, how, at bottom of the rungs 
O' the ladder Jacob saw, where heavenly angels stept 
Up and down, lay a stone which served him, while he 

slept, 
For pillow j when he woke, he set the same upright 
As pillar, and atop poured oil : things requisite 
To instruct posterity, there mounts from floor to roof 
A staircase, earth to heaven ; and also put in proof, 
When we have scaled the sky, we well may let alone 
What raised us from the ground, and -^ paying to the 

stone 
Proper respect, of course — take staff and go our way, 
Leaving the Pagan night for Christian break of day. 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 143 

* For,' preached he, * what they dreamed, these Pagans, 

wide-awake. 
We Christians may behold. How strange, then, were 

mistake. 
Did anybody style the stone — because of drop 
Remaining there from oil which Jacob poured atop — 
Itself the Gate of Heaven ; itself the end, and not 
The means thereto ! ' Thus preached the cure, and no 

jot 
The more persuaded people, but that, what once a thing 
Meant, and had right to mean, it still must mean. So 

cling 
Folk somehow to the prime authoritative speech. 
And so distrust report, it seems as they could reach 
Far better the arch-word, whereon their fate depends, 
Through rude charactery, than all the grace it lends, 
That lettering of your scribes ! who flourish pen apace, 
And ornament the text, they say ; we say, efface. 
Hence, when the earth began its life afresh in May, 
And fruit-trees bloomed, and waves would wanton, and 

the bay 



144 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Ruffle its wealth of weed, and stranger-birds arrive, 
And beasts take each a mate, — folk, too, found sensi- 
tive. 
Surmised the old gray stone upright there, through such 

tracts 
Of solitariness and silence, kept the facts 
Intrusted it, could deal out doctrine, did it please : 
No fresh and frothy draught, but liquor on the lees. 
Strong, savage, and sincere, — first bleedings from a vine. 
Whereof the product now do cures so refine 
To insipidity, that, when heart sinks, we strive 
And strike from out the old stone the old restorative. 
' Which is ? ' — why, go and ask our grandams how they 

used 
To dance around it, till the cure disabused 
Their ignorance, and bade the parish in a band 
Lay flat the obtrusive thing that cumbered so the land ! 
And there, accordingly, in bush and brier, it — ' bides 
Its time to rise again ' (so somebody derides. 
That's pert from Paris); 'since yon spire, you keep erect 
Yonder, and pray beneath, is nothing, I suspect. 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 145 

But just the symbol's self, expressed in slate for rock, — 
Art's smooth for Nature's rough, new chip from^ the old 

block ! ' 
There, sir, my say is said! Thanks, and Saint Gille 

increase 
The wealth bestowed so well ! " — wherewith he pockets 

piece, 
Doffs cap, and takes the road. I leave in Learning's 

clutch 
More money for his book, but scarcely gain as much. 

cxxiv. 
To this it was, this same primeval monument. 
That, in my dream, I saw building with building blent 
Fall : each on each they fast and founderingly went 
Confusion-ward ; but thence again subsi'ded fast. 
Became the mound you see. Magnificently massed 
Indeed, those mammoth-stones, piled by the Protoplast 
Temple-wise in my dream ! beyond compare with fanes. 
Which, solid-looking late, had left no least remains 
I' the bald and blank, now sole usurper of the plains 



146 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Of heaven, diversified and beautiful before. 

And yet simplicity appeared to speak no more 

Nor less to me than spoke the compound. At the 

core, 
One and no other word, as in the crust of late. 
Whispered, which, audible through the transition-state, 
Was no loud utterance in even the ultimate 
Disposure. For as some imperial chord subsists, 
Steadily underlies the accidental mists 
Of music springing thence, that run their mazy race 
Around, and sink, absorbed, back to the triad base ; 
So, out of that one word, each variant rose and fell, 
And left the same " All's change, but permanence as 

well." 
Grave -note, whence — list aloft ! — harmonics sound, 

that mean, — 
" Truth inside ; and, outside, truth also ; and, between 
Each, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence. 
The individual soul works through the shows of sense 
(Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true) 
Up to an outer soul as individual too ; 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 147 

And, through the fleeting, Hves to die into the fixed. 
And reach at length * God, man, or both together 

mixed,' 
Transparent through the flesh, by parts which prove a 

whole. 
By hints which make the soul discernible by soul, — 
Lk only soul look up, not down, not hate, but love, 
_ As truth successively takes shape, one grade above 
Its last presentment, tempts as it were truth indeed 
Revealed this timej so tempts, till we attain to 

read 
The signs aright, and learn, by failure, truth is forced 
To manifest itself through falsehood ; whence divorced 
By the excepted eye, at the rare season, for 
The happy moment, truth instructs us to abhor 
The false, and prize the true, obtainable thereby. 
Then do we understand the value of a lie : 
Its purpose served, its truth once safe deposited. 
Each lie, superfluous now, leaves, in the singer's stead, 
The indubitable song j the historic personage 
Put by, leaves prominent the impulse of his age ; 



148 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Truth sets aside speech, act, time, place, indeed, but 

brings 
Nakedly forward now the principle of things 
Highest and least." 

cxxv. 
Wherewith change ends. What 
other change to dread. 
When, disengaged at last from every veil, instead 
Of type remains the truth ? Once — falsehood ; but 

anon 
Theosuton e broteion eper kekrahienon, — 
Something as true as soul is true, though veils be- 
tween 
Are false, and fleet away. As I mean, did he mean, 
The poet whose bird-phrase sits, singing in my ear 
A mystery not unlike ? What through the dark and 

drear 
Brought comfort to the Titan ? Emerging from the 

lymph, 
" God, man, or mixture," proved only to be a nymph : 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 149 

"From whom the clink on dirrk of metal" (money, 

judged 
Abundant in my purse) " struck " (bumped at, till it 

budged) 
" The modesty, her soul's habitual resident," 
Where late the sisterhood were lively in their tent,) 
" As out of winged car " (that caravan on wheels) 
" Impulsively she rushed, no slippers to her heels," 
And " Fear not, friends we flock ! " soft smiled the sea- 

Fifine, — 
Primitive of the veils (if he meant what I mean) 
The poet's Titan learned to lift, ere " Three-formed 

Fate, 
|i Moirai Trimorphoi" stood unmasked the Ultimate. 

i : CXXVI. 

Enough o' the dream ! You see how poetry turns prose. 
Announcing wonder-work, I dwindle at the close 
Down to mere commonplace which everybody knows. 
But dreaming disappoints. The fresh and strange at first 
Soon wear to trite and tame, nor warrant the outburst 



15© . FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Of heart with which we hail those heights, at very 

brink 
Of heaven, whereto one least of lifts would lead, we 

think j 
But wherefrom quick decline conducts our step, we 

find. 
To homely earth, and fact familiar left behind. 
Did not this monument, for instance, long ago 
Say all it had to say, show all it had to show, - 
Nor promise to do duty more in dream ? 

CXXVII. 

Awaking so, 
What if we, homeward-bound, all peace and some fa- 
tigue, 
Trudge, soberly complete our tramp of near a league, 
Last little mile which makes the circuit just, Elvire ? 
We end where we began : that consequence is clear. 
All peace and some fatigue, wherever we were nursed 
To life, we bosom us on death, find last is first. 
And thenceforth final too. 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 151 

CXXVIII. 

" Why final ? Why the more 
Worth credence now than when such truth proved false 

before ? " 
Because a novel point impresses now : each lie 
Redounded to the praise of man, was victory 
Man's nature had both right to get, and might to gain, 
And by no means implied submission to the reign 
Of other quite as real a nature, that saw fit 
To have its way with man, not man its way with it. 
This time, acknowledgment and acquiescence quell 
Their contrary in man ; promotion proves as well 
Defeat; and Truths unlike the False with Truth's outside, 
Neither plumes up his will, nor puffs him out with pride. 
I fancy there must lurk some cogency i' the claim, 
Man, such abatement made, submits to, all the same. 
Soul finds no triumph, here, to register like Sense, 
With whom 'tis ask and have, — the want, the evidence 
That the thing wanted, soon or late will be supplied. 
This indeed plumes up will, this, sure, puffs out with 

pride, 



152 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

When, reading records right, man's instincts still attest 
Promotion comes to Sense because Sense likes it best : 
For bodies sprouted legs, through a desire to run ; 
While hands, when fain to filch, got fingers one by one ; 
And nature, that's ourself, accommodative brings 
To bear, that, tired of legs which walk, we now bud wings, 
Since of a mind to fly. Such savor in the nose 
Of Sense would stimulate Soul sweetly, I suppose, — 
Soul with its proper itch of instinct, prompting clear 
To recognize Soul's self Soul's only master here 
Alike from first to last. But if time's pressure, light's. 
Or rather dark's, approach, wrest thoroughly the rights 
Of rule away, and bid the soul submissive bear 
Another'soul than it play master everywhere 
In great and small, — this time, I fancy, none disputes 
There's something in the fact that such conclusion suits 
Nowise the pride of man, nor yet chimes in with 

attributes 
Conspicuous in the lord of nature. He receives, 
And not demands, — not first likes faith, and then 

believes. 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 153 

CXXIX. 
And as with the last essence, so with its first faint 

type. 
Inconstancy means raw ; 'tis faith alone means ripe 
I' the soul which runs its round : no matter how it 

range 
From Helen to Fifine, Elvire bids back the change 
To permanence. Here, too, love ends where love 

began. 
Such ending looks like law, because the natural man 
Inclines the other way, feels lordlier free than bound. 
Poor pabulum for pride when the first love is found 
Last also ! and, so far from reahzing gain. 
Each step aside just proves divergency in. vain. 
The wanderer brings home no profit from his quest 
Beyond the sad surmise that keeping house were 

best 
Could life begin anew. His problem posed aright 
Was, " From the given point evolve the infinite ! " 
Not, " Spend thyself in space, endeavoring to joint 
Together, and so make infinite, point and point : 



154 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Fix into one Elvire a Fair-ful of Fifines ! " 
Fifine, the foam-flake, she : Elvire, the sea's self, means 
Capacity at need to shower how many such ! 
And yet we left her calm profundity, to clutch 
Foam-flutter, bell on bell, that, bursting at a touch. 
Blistered us for our pains. But^ wise, we want no more 
O' the fickle element. Enough of foam and roar ! 
Land-locked, we live and die henceforth ; for here's the 
villa-door. 

cxxx. 
How pallidly you pause o' the threshold ! Hardly 

night. 
Which drapes you, ought to make real flesh and blood 

so white ! 
Touch me, and so appear alive to all intents ! 
Will the saint vanish from the sinner that repents ? 
Suppose you are a ghost ! — a memory, a hope, 
A fear, a conscience ! Quick ! — give back the hand I 

grope 
I' the dusk for ! 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. IS 5 

CXXXI. 
That is well. Our double horoscope 
I cast, while you concur. Discard that simile 
O' the fickle element ! Elvire is land, not sea, — 
The solid land, the safe. All these word-bubbles came 
O' the sea, and bite like salt. The unlucky bath's to 

blame. 
This hand of yours on heart of mine^ no more the bay 
I beat, nor bask beneath the blue ! In Pornic, say. 
The mayor shall catalogue me duly domiciled, 
Contributable, good-companion of the guild 
And mystery of marriage. I stickle for the town, 
And not this tower apart j because, though, half way 

down. 
Its mullions wink o'er-webbed with bloomy greenness yet, ^ 
Who mounts to staircase top may tempt the parapet, 
And sudden there's the sea ! No memories to arouse, 
No fancies to delude ! Our honest civic house 
Of the earth be earthy too ! — or graced perchance with 

shell 
Made prize of long ago, picked haply where the swell 



156 FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 

Menaced a little once ; or seaweed- branch that yet 
Dampens and softens, notes a freak of wind, a fret 
Of wave : though why on earth should sea-change mend 

or mar 
The calm contemplative householders that we are ? 
So shall the seasons fleet, while our two selves abide : 
E'en past astonishment how sunrise and springtide 
Could tempt one forth to swim ; the more if time ap- 
points 
That swimming grow a task for one's rheumatic joints. 
Such honest civic house, behold, I constitute 
Our villa! Be but flesh and blood, and smile to 

boot! 
Enter for good and all ! then fate bolt fast the door, 
Shut you and me inside, never to wander more ! 

CXXXII. 

Only, you do not use to apprehend attack ! 
No doubt, the way I march, one idle arm, thrown slack 
Behind me, leaves the open hand defenceless at the 
back, 



FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 157 

Should an impertinent on tiptoe steal, and stuff — 

Whatever can it be ? A letter sure enough, 

Pushed betwixt palm and glove ! That largess of a 

franc ? 
Perhaps inconsciously, — to better help the blank 
O' the nest, her tambourine, and, laying Q,gg, persuade 
A family to follow, the nest-egg that I laid 
May have contained — but just to foil suspicious folk — 
Between two silver whites a yellow double yolk ! 
Oh, threaten no farewell ! five minutes shall suffice 
To clear the matter up. I go, and in a trice 
Return ; five minutes past, expect me ! If in vain, — 
Why, slip from flesh and blood, and play the ghost 

again ! ^ 





EPILOGUE. 



The Householder. 



Savage I was sitting in my house, ate, lone ; 

Dreary, weary with the long day's work ; 
Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a stone ; 

Tongue-tied now, now blaspheming like a Turk ; 
When, in a moment, just a knock, call, cry, 

Half a pang, and all a rapture, there again were we ! 
" What, and is it really you again ? " quoth I. 

" I again ; what else did you expect ? " quoth She. 
is8 



EPILOGUE. 159 

II. 
" Never mind : hie away from this old house, — 

Every crumbling brick imbrowned with sin and shame ! 
Quick ! in its corners ere certain shapes arouse ! 

Let them — every devil of the night — lay claim, 
Make and mend, or rap and rend, for me ! Good-by ! 

God be their guard from disturbance at their glee, 
Till, crash, comes down the carcass in a heap ! " quoth I. 

" Nay ; but there's a decency required ! " quoth She. 

III. 
" Ah, but if you knew how time has dragged, days, nights ! 

All the neighbor-talk with man and maid, — such men ! 
All the fuss and trouble of street-sounds, window-sights ; 

All the worry of flapping door and echoing roof; and, then, 
All the fancies. . . . Who were they had leave, dared try 

Darker arts that almost struck despair in me ? 
If you knew but how I dwelt down here ! " quoth I. 

" And was I so better off up there ? " quoth She. 

IV. 

" Help and get it over ! Re-united to his wife, 
(How draw up the paper lets the parish-people know ?) 

Lies M. or JV., departed from this life, 
Day the this or that, month and year the so and so. 



i6o 



EPILOGUE, 



What i' the way of final flourish ? Prose, verse ? Try ! 

Kffliction sore long time he bore, or what is it to be ? 
Till God did please to grant him ease. Do end ! " quoth I. 

"I end with — Love is all, and Death is nought !" quoth She. 




PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 



"TSpav ^ovevaag, [ivpiuv t* uXKqv ttovuv 
dirjl-dov dyeXag . . . 
TO Tiota'&tov 6e rbv& stXtjv rakaQ ttovov, 
. . . dufia ■&piyKC)aat kukolc. 

I slew the Hydra, and from labor passed 
To labor, — tribes of labors ! Till at last, 
Attempting one more labor, in a trice. 
Alack ! with ills I crowned the edifice. 




Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 



You have seen better days, dear ? So have I, — 
And worse too ; for they brought no such bud-mouth 
As yours to lisp, " You wish you knew me ! " Well, 
Wise men, 'tis said, have sometimes wished the same, 
And wished and had their trouble for their pains. 
Suppose my OEdipus should lurk at last 
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline, 
And, latish, pounce on Sphinx in Leicester Square ? 
Or, likelier, what if Sphinx in wise old age, 
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads, 
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, — 

163 



1 64 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Jealous that the good trick which served the turn 

Have justice rendered it, nor class one day 

With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware, 

What if the once redoubted Sphinx, I say, 

(Because night draws on, and the sands increase, 

And desert-whispers grow a prophecy,) 

Tell all to Corinth of her own accord, 

Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake, 

Who finds me hardly gray, and likes my nose, 

And thinks a man of sixty at the prime ? 

Good ! It shall be ! Revealment of myself! 

But listen ; for we must co-operate. 

I don't drink tea : permit me the cigar. 

First, how to make the matter plain, of course, — 
What was the law by which I lived. Let's see : 
Ay, we must take one instant of my life 
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room : 
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh. 
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink : 
Give me the soiled bit, not the pretty rose. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 165 

See ! having sat an hour, I'm rested now, 

Therefore want work ; and spy no better work 

For eye and hand, and mind that guides them both. 

During this instant, than to draw my pen 

From blot One — thus • — up, up to blot Two — thus — 

Which- 1 at last reach, thus ; and here's my line 

Five inches long, and tolerably straight. 

Better to draw than leave undrawn, I think ; 

Fitter to do than let alone, I hold ; 

Though better, fitter, by but one degree. 

Therefore it was, that, rather than sit still 

Simply, my right hand drew it while my left 

Pulled smooth and pinched the mustache to a point. 

Now I permit your plump lips to unpurse : — 

" So far, one possibly may understand 

Without recourse to witchcraft." True, my dear. 

Thus folks begin with Euclid ; finish, how ? 

Trying to square the circle ! — at any rate. 

Solving abstruser problems than this first, — 

" How find the nearest way 'twixt point and point." 



1 66 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Deal but with moral mathematics so ; 

Master one merest moment's work of mine, 

Even this practising with pen and ink ; 

Demonstrate why I rather plied the quill 

Than left the space a blank, — you gain a fact ; 

And God knows what a fact's worth ! So proceed 

By inference from just this moral fact ; 

I don't say to that plaguy quadrature, 

" What the whole man meant, whom you wish you knew," 

But what meant certain things he did of old 

Which puzzled Europe ; why, you'll find them plain. 

This way, not otherwise : I guarantee. 

Understand one, you comprehend the rest. 

Rays from all round converge to any point : 

Study the point, then, ere you track the rays. 

The size o' the circle's nothing : subdivide 

Earth, and earth's smallest grain of mustard-seed. 

You count as many parts, small matching large. 

If you can use the mind's eye ; otherwise. 

Material optics, being gross at best. 

Prefer the large, and leave our mind the small. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 1 67 

And pray how many folks have minds can see ? 
Certainly you, and somebody in Thrace 
Whose name escapes me at the moment. You — 
Lend me your mind, then. Analyze with me 
This instance of the line 'twixt blot and blot 
I rather chose to draw than leave a blank, 
Things else being equal. You are taught thereby 
That 'tis my nature, when I am at ease, 
Rather than idle out my life too long. 
To want to do a thing, to put a thought, 
Whether a great thought or a little one, 
Into an act, as nearly as may be. 
Make what is absolutely new, I can't ; 
Mar what is made already well enough, 
I won't : but turn to best account the thing 
That's half made, that I can. Two blots you saw 
I knew how to extend into a line 
Symmetric on the sheet they blurred before : 
Such little act sufficed, this time, such thought. 

Now we'll extend rays, widen out the verge, 



l68 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Describe a larger circle, leave this first 

Clod of an instance we began with, rise 

To the complete world many clods effect. 

Only continue patient while I throw, 

Delver-like, spadeful after spadeful up, 

Just as truths come, the subsoil of me, mould 

Whence spring my moods : your object, — just to find. 

Alike from hand-lift and from barrow-load. 

What salts and silts may constitute the earth, 

If it be proper stuff to blow man glass. 

Or bake him pottery, bear him oaks or wheat ; 

What's born of me_, in brief; which found, all's known. 

If it were genius did the digging job. 

Logic would speedily sift its product smooth, 

And leave the crude truths bare for poetry ; 

But I'm no poet, and am stiff i' the back. 

What one spread fails to bring, another may. 

In goes the shovel, and out comes scoop, — as here ! 

I live to please myself. I recognize 
Power passing mine, immeasurable, God, — 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 169 

Above me whom he made, as heaven beyond 

Earth, — to use figures which assist our sense. 

I know that he is there as I am here, 

By the same proof, which seems no proof at all, 

It so exceeds familiar forms of proof. 

Why " there," not " here " ? Because, when I say " there," 

I treat the feeling with distincter shape 

That space exists between us ; I, not he. 

Live, think, do human work here : no machine 

His will moves, but a being by myself. 

His, and not he who made me for a work, 

Watches my working, judges its effect. 

But does not interpose. He did so once, 

And probably will again some time, not now, 

Life being the minute of mankind, not God's, 

In a certain sense, like time before and time 

After man's earthly life, so far as man 

Needs apprehend the matter. Am I clear ? 

Suppose I bid a courier take to-night, — 

(Once for all, let me talk as if I smoked 

Yet in the Residenz, a personage : 



lyo PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

I must still represent the thing I was, 

Galvanically make dead muscle play, 

Or how shall I illustrate muscle's use ?) — 

I could then, last July, bid courier take 

Message for me, post-haste, a thousand miles. 

I bid him, since I have the right to bid ; 

And, my part done so far, his part begins. 

He starts with due equipment, will and power, 

Means he may use, misuse, not use at all, 

At his discretion, at his peril too. 

I leave him to himself: but, journey done, 

I count the minutes, call for the result 

In quickness and the courier quality, 

Weigh its worth, and then punish or reward 

According to proved service ; not before. 

Meantime he sleeps through noontide, rides till dawn. 

Sticks to the straight road, tries the crooked path. 

Measures and manages resource, trusts, doubts 

Advisers by the wayside, does his best 

At his discretion, lags, or launches forth 

(He knows and I know) at his peril too. 



.9^ VIO UR OF SO CIE TV. 171 

- You see ? Exactly thus men stand to God, — 
I with my courier, God with me. Just so 
I have his bidding to perform ; but mind 
And body, all of me, though made and meant 
For that sole service, must consult, concert, 
With my own self, and nobody beside. 
How to effect the same : God helps not else. 
'Tis I who, with my stock of craft and strength, 
Choose the directer cut across the hedge. 
Or keep the foot-track that respects a crop ; 
Lie down and rest ; rise up and run ; live spare ; 
Feed free, — all that's my business : but arrive, 
Deliver message, bring the answer back, 
And make my bow, I must ; then God will speak, — 
Praise me, or haply blame, as service proves. 
To other men, to each and every one. 
Another law : what likelier ? God, perchance. 
Grants each new man, by some as new a mode, 
Intercommunication with himself. 
Wreaking on finiteness infinitude ; 
By such a series of effects gives each 



172 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Last his own imprint : old, yet ever new, 

The process : 'tis the way of Deity. 

How it succeeds, he knows : I only know 

That varied modes of creatureship abound, 

Implying just as varied intercourse 

For each with the Creator of them all. 

Each has his own mind, and no other's mode. 

What mode may yours be ? I shall sympathize. 

No doubt, you, good young lady that you are, 

Despite a natural naughtiness or two, 

Turn eyes up like a Pradier Magdalen, 

And see an outspread providential hand 

Above the owl's-wing aigrette — guard and guide - 

Visibly o'er your path, about your bed, 

Through all your practisings with London-town. 

It points, you go j it stays fixed, an^ you stop : 

You quicken its procedure by a word 

Spoken, a thought in silence, prayer, and praise. 

Well, I believe that such a hand may stoop. 

And such appeals to it may stave off harm, 

Pacify the grim guardian of this square, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 173 

And stand you in good stead on quarter-day : 

Quite possible in your case, not in mine. 

" Ah ! but I choose to make the difference, 

Find the emancipation ? " No, I hope. 

If I deceive myself, take noon for night, 

Please to become determinedly blind 

To the true ordinance of human life 

Through mere presumption, that is my affair, 

And truly a grave one : but as grave I think 

Your affair, — yours, the specially observed j 

Each favored person that perceives his path 

Pointed him inch by inch, and looks above 

For guidance, through the mazes of this world, 

In what we call its meanest life-career, — 

Not how to manage Europe properly. 

But how keep open shop, and yet pay rent, 

Rear household, and make both ends meet, — the same. 

I say, such man is no less tasked than I 

To duly take the path appointed him 

By whatsoever sign he recognize. 

Our insincerity on both our heads ! 



174 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

No matter what the object of a life, 

Small work or large, — the making thrive a shop, 

Or seeing that an empire take no harm, — 

There are known fruits to judge obedience by. 

You've read a ton's weight, now, of newspaper, — 

Lives of me, gabble about the kind of prince : 

You know my work i' the rough : I ask you, then, 

Do I appear subordinated less 

To hand-impulsion, one prime push for all. 

Than little lives of men, the multitude 

That cried out every quarter of an hour 

For fresh instructions, did or did not work. 

And praised in the odd minutes ? 

Eh, my dear ? 
Such is the reason why I acquiesced 
In doing what seemed best for me to do, 
So as to please myself on the great scale, 
Having regard to immortality 
No less than life ; did that which head and heart 
Prescribed my hand, in measure with its means 
Of doing j used my special stock of power. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 175 

Not from the aforesaid head and heart alone, 

But every sort of helpful circumstance, 

Some problematic, and some nondescript ; 

All regulated by the single care 

I' the last resort, — that I made thoroughly serve 

The when and how, toiled where was need, reposed 

As resolutely to the proper point. 

Braved sorrow, courted joy, to just one end, — 

Namely, that just the creature I was bound 

To be I should become, nor thwart at all 

God's purpose in creation. I conceive 

No other duty possible to man, — 

Highest mind, lowest mind, — no other law 

By which to judge life failure or success. 

What folks call being saved or cast away. 

Such was my rule of life : I worked my best, 
Subject to ultimate judgment, — God's, not man's. " 
Well, then, this settled, — take your tea, I beg. 
And meditate the fact 'twixt sip and sip, — 
This settled, — why I pleased myself, you saw, 



176 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

By turning blot and blot into a line 

O' the little scale, — we'll try now (as your tongue 

Tries the concluding sugar-drop) what's meant 

To please me most o' the great scale. Why, just now, 

With nothing else to do within my reach, 

Did I prefer making two blots one line 

To making yet another separate 

Third blot, and leaving those I found unlinked ? 

It meant, I like to use the thing I find. 

Rather than strive at unfound novelty : 

I make the best of the old, nor try for new. 

Such will to act, such choice of action's way. 

Constitute — when at work on the great scale. 

Driven to their farthest natural consequence 

By all the help from all the means — my own 

Particular faculty of serving God, 

Instinct for putting power to exercise 

Upon some wish and want o' the time, I prove 

Possible to mankind as best I may. 

This constitutes my mission (grant the phrase) : 

Namely, to rule men, — men within my reach ; 



SA VIO UR OF SO CIE TV. 177 

To order, influence, and dispose them so 

As render solid, and stabilify 

Mankind in particles, the light and loose, 

For their good and my pleasure in the act. 

Such good accomplished proves twice good to me, — 

Good for its own sake, as the just and right ; 

And, in the effecting also, good again 

To me its agent, tasked as suits my taste. 

Is this much easy to be understood 

At first glance ? Now begin the steady gaze. 

My rank (if I must tell you simple truth : 
Telling were else not worth the whiff o' the weed 
I lose for the tale's sake), dear, my rank i' the world. 
Is hard to know and name precisely : err 
I may, but scarcely over-estimate 
My style and title. Do I class with men 
Most useful to their fellows ? Possibly, 
Therefore, in some sort, best ; but greatest mind 
And rarest nature? Evidently no. 



178 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

A conservator call me, if you please, 

Not a creator nor destroyer, — one 

Who keeps the world safe. I profess to trace 

The broken circle of society ; 

Dim actual order I can redescribe, 

Not only where some segment silver-true 

Stays clear, but where the breaks of black commence, 

Baffling you all who want the eye to probe, 

As I make out yon problematic thin 

White paring of your thumb-nail outside there, 

Above the plaster monarch on his steed ; 

See an inch ; name an ell ; and prophesy 

O' the rest that ought to follow, — the round moon 

Now hiding in the night of things : that round, 

I labor to demonstrate moon enough 

For the month's purpose j that society, 

Render efficient for the age's need : 

Preserving you in either case the old. 

Nor aiming at a new and greater thing, — 

A sun for moon, a future to be made 

By first abolishing the present law : 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 179 

No such proud task for me by any means ! 
. History shows you men whose master-touch 
Not so much modifies as makes anew, — 
Minds that transmute, nor need restore at all. 
A breath of God made manifest in flesh 
Subjects the world to change from time to time j 
Alters the whole conditions of our race 
Abruptly, not by unperceived degrees, 
Nor play of elements already there. 
But quite new leaven, leavening the lump, 
And liker, so, the natural process. See ! 
Where Winter reigned for ages, — by a turn 
I' the time, some star-change (ask geologists), 
The ice-tract^ split, clash, splinter, and disperse. 
And there's an end of immobility. 
Silence, and all that tinted pageant, base 
To pinnacle, one flush from fairy-land 
Dead-asleep and deserted somewhere, — see ! — 
As a fresh sun, wave, spring, and joy outburst 
Or else the earth it is, time starts from trance. 
Her mountains tremble into fire, her plains 



t8o prince hohenstiel-schvvangau. 

Heave blinded by confusion : what result ? 

New teeming growth, surprises of strange life 

Impossible before, a world broke up 

And re-made, order gained by law destroyed. 

Not otherwise, in our society, 

Follow like portents, all as absolute 

Regenerations : they have birth at rare, 

Uncertain, unexpected intervals 

O' the v/orld, by ministry impossible 

Before and after fulness of the days : 

Some dervis desert-spectre, swordsman, saint. 

Law-giver, lyrist, — oh ! we know the names. 

Quite other these than I. Our time requires 

No such strange potentate, — who else would dawn, - 

No fresh force till the old have spent itself. 

Such seems the natural economy. 

To shoot a beam into the dark assists : 

To make that beam do fuller service, spread 

And utilize such bounty to the height, — 

That assists also ; and that work is mine. 

I recognize, contemplate, and approve 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 

The general compact of society, 

Not simply as I see effected good, 

But good i' the germ, each chance that's possible 

I' the plan traced so far ; all results, in short. 

For better or worse of the operation due 

To .those exceptional natures, unlike mine, 

Who, helping, thwarting, conscious, unaware, 

Did somehow manage to so far describe 

This diagram left ready to my hand, 

Waiting my turn of trial. I see success, 

See failure, see what makes or mars throughout. 

How shall I else but help complete this plan, 

Of which I know the purpose, and approve, 

By letting stay therein what seems to stand, • 

And adding good thereto of easier reach 

To-day than yesterday ? 

So much, no more ! 
Whereon, " No more than that ? " inquire aggrieved 
Half of my critics : " nothing new at all ? 
The old plan saved, instead of a sponged slate 



1 82 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

And fresh-drawn figure ? " While, " So much as that ? " 

Object their fellows of the other faith : 

" Leave uneffaced the crazy labyrinth 

Of alteration and amendment, lines 

Which every dabster felt in duty bound 

To signalize his power of pen and ink 

By adding to a plan once plain enough ? 

Why keep each fool's bequeathment, scratch and blur 

Which overscrawl and underscore the piece ; 

Nay, strengthen them by touches of your own ? " 

Well, that's my mission, so I serve the world, 

Figure as man o' the moment, — in default 

Of somebody inspired to strike such change 

Into society, — from round to square, 

The ellipsis to the rhomboid, — how you please, 

As suits the size and shape o' the world he finds. 

But this I can, — and nobody my peer, — 

Do the best with the least change possible ; 

Carry the incompleteness on a stage ; 

Make what was crooked straight, and roughness smooth. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 183 

And weakness strong : wherein if I succeed, 
It will not prove the worst achievement, sure, 
In the eyes at least of one man, — one I look 
Nowise to catch in critic company ; 
To wit, the man inspired, the genius' self. 
Destined to come and change things thoroughly. 
He, at least, finds his business simplified, 
.Distinguishes the done from undone, reads 
Plainly what meant and did not mean this time 
We live in, and I work on, and transmit 
To such successor : he will operate 
On good hard substance, not mere shade and shine. 
Let all my critics, born to idleness 
And impotency, get their good, and have 
Their hooting at the giver : I am deaf, 
Who find great good in this society, 
Great gain, the purchase of great labor. Touch 
The work I may and must, but — reverent 
In every fall o' the finger-tip, no doubt. 
Perhaps I find all good there's warrant for 
I' the world as yet : nay, to the end of time j 



1 84 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Since evil never means part company 

With mankind, only shift side and change shape. 

I find advance i' the main, and notably 

The Present an improvement on the Past, 

And promise for the Future, which shall prove 

Only the Present with its rough made smooth, 

Its indistinctness emphasized : I hope 

No better, nothing newer, for mankind, 

But something equably smoothed everywhere, — 

Good, reconciled with hardly-quite-as-good. 

Instead of good and bad each jostling each. 

" And that's all ? " Ay, and quite enough for me ! 

We have toiled so long to gain what gain I find 

I' the Present, let us keep it ! We shall toil 

So long before we gain, if gain God grant, 

A Future with one touch of difference 

I' the heart of things, and not their outside face, 

Let us not risk the whiff of my cigar 

For Fourier, Comte, and all that ends in smoke ! 

This I see clearest probably of men, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 185 

With power to act and influence, now alive : 

Juster than they to the true state of things ; 

In consequence, more tolerant, that, side 

By side, shall co-exist, and thrive alike 

In the age, the various sorts of happiness 

Moral, mark ! — not material, — moods o' the mind 

Suited to man and man his opposite : 

Say, minor modes of movement, — hence to there, 

Or thence to here, or simply round about, — 

So long as each toe spares its neighbor's kibe. 

Nor spoils the major march and main advance. 

The love of peace, care for the family. 

Contentment with what's bad, but might be worse, — 

Good movements these ! and good, too, discontent, 

So long as that spurs good, which might be best. 

Into becoming better anyhow : 

Good, — pride of country, putting hearth and home 

r the background, out of undue prominence ; 

Good, — yearning after change, strife, victory. 

And triumph. Each shall have its orbit marked, 

But no more, — none impede the other's path 



1 86 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

In this wide world ; though each and all alike, 

Save for me, fain would spread itself through space, 

And leave its fellow not an inch of way. 

I rule and regulate the course, excite. 

Restrain ; because the whole machine should march 

Impelled by those diversely-moving parts. 

Each blind to aught beside its little bent. 

Out of the turnings round and round inside 

Comes that straightforward world-advance I want, 

And none of them supposes God wants too. 

And gets through just their hinderance and my help. 

I think that to have held the balance straight 

For twenty years, say, weighing claim and claim, 

And giving each its due, no less, no more, — 

This was good service to humanity, 

Right usage of my power in head and heart. 

And reasonable piety beside. 

Keep those three points in mind while judging me. 

You stand, perhaps, for some one man, not men ; 

Represent this or the other interest, 

Nor mind the general welfare ; so, impugn 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 187 

My practice,, and dispute my value : why ? 

You man of faith, I did not tread the world 

Into a paste, and thereof make a smooth 

Uniform mound whereon to plant your flag, 

The lily-white, above the blood and brains ; 

Nor yet did I, you man of faithlessness. 

So roll things to the level which you love. 

That you could stand at ease there, and survey 

The universal Nothing undisgraced 

By pert obtrusion of some old church-spire 

I' the distance. Neither friend would I content \ 

Nor, as the world were simply meant for him. 

Thrust out his fellow, and mend God's mistake. 

Why, you two fools, — my dear friends all the same, — 

Is it some change o' the world, and nothing else, 

Contents you ? Should whatever was, not be ? 

How thanklessly you view things ! There's the root 

Of the evil, source of the entire mistake : 

You see no worth i' the world, nature, and life. 

Unless we change what is to what may be ; 

Which means, — may be i' the brain of one of you ! 



1 88 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

" Reject what is ? " — all capabilities, — 

Nay, you may style them chances if you choose, - 

All chances, then, of happiness that lie 

Open to anybody that is born, 

Tumbles into this life and out again, — 

All that may happen, good and evil too, 

I' the space between, to each adventurer 

Upon this 'sixty, Anno Domini : 

A life to live, — and such a life ! a world 

To learn, one's lifetime in, — and such a world ! 

How ever did the foolish pass for wise 

By calling life a burden, man a fly 

Or worm, or what's most insignificant ? 

" O littleness of man ! " deplores the bard ; 

And then, for fear the Powers should punish him, 

" O grandeur of the visible universe 

Our human littleness contrasts withal ! 

O sun, O moon, ye mountains, and thou sea, 

Thou emblem of immensity, thou this, 

That, and the other ! — what impertinence 

In man to eat and drink and walk about, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 189 

And have his little notions of his own, 

The while some wave sheds foam upon the shore ! " 

First of all, 'tis a lie some three times thick : 

The bard, — this sort of speech being poetry, — 

The bard puts mankind well outside himself. 

And then begins instructing them : " This way 

I and my friend the sea conceive of you ! 

What would you give to think such thoughts as ours 

Of you and the sea together ? " Down they go 

On the humbled knees of them : at once they draw 

Distinction, recognize no mate of theirs 

In one, despite his mock humility. 

So plain a match for what he plays with. Next 

The turn of the great ocean-playfellow, 

When the bard, leaving Bond Street very far 

From ear-shot, cares not to ventriloquize. 

But tells the sea its home-truths : " You, my match ? 

You, all this terror and immensity. 

And what not ? Shall I tell you what you are ? 

Just fit to hitch into a stanza : so 

Wake up and set in motion who's asleep 



IQO PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAUy 

O' the other side of you, in England, else 
Unaware, as folk pace their Bond Street now, 
Somebody here despises them so much ! 
Between us, — they are the ultimate ! to them 
And their perception go these lordly thoughts : 
Since what were ocean, — mane and tail to boot, — 
Mused I not here, how make thoughts thinkable ? 
Start forth my stanza, and astound the world ! 
Back, billows, to your insignificance ! 
Deep, you are done with ! " 

Learn, my gifted friend, 
There are two things i' the world, still wiser folk 
Accept, — intelligence and sympathy. 
You pant about unutterable power 
I' the ocean, all you feel but cannot speak ? 
Why, that's the plainest speech about it all : 
You did not feel what was not to be felt. 
Well, then, all else but what man feels is nought, — 
The wash o' the liquor that o'erbrims the cup 
Called man, and runs to waste adown his side. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 191 

Perhaps to feed a cataract : who cares ? 

I'll tell you : all the more I know mankind, 

The more I thank God, like my grandmother, 

For making me a little lower than 

The angels, honor-clothed and glory-crowned. 

This is the honor, — that no thing I know. 

Feel, or conceive, but I can make my own 

Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart : 

This is the glory, — that in all conceived, 

Or felt or known, I recognize a mind 

Not mine, but like mine, — for the double joy, — 

^ Making all things for me, and me for Him. 
There's folly for you at this time of day ! 
So think it ! and enjoy your ignorafice 

^ Of what — no matter for the worthy's name — 
Wisdom set working in a noble heart. 
When he, who was earth's best geometer 
Up to that tifne of day, consigned his life 
With its results into one matchless book, — 
The triumph of the human mind so far, ' 
All in geometry man yet could do, — 



192 PRINCE HOHENSTJEL-SCHWANGAU, 

And then wrote on the dedication-page, 

In place of name the universe applauds, 

" But, God, what a geometer art thou ! " 

I suppose heaven is, through eternity. 

The equalizing, ever and anon. 

In momentary rapture, great with small. 

Omniscience with intelligency, God 

With man, — the thunder-glow from pole to pole 

Abolishing, a blissful moment-space, 

Great cloud alike and small cloud, in one fire, — 

As sure to ebb as sure again to flow 

When the new receptivity deserves 

The new completion. There's the heaven for me. 

And I sa}^, therefore, to live out one's life 

I' the world here, with the chance — whether by pain 

Or pleasure be the process, long or short 

The time, august or mean the circumstance 

To human eye — of learning how set foot 

Decidedly on some one path to heaven, 

Touch one point in the circle whence all lines 

Lead to the centre equally, — red lines 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 

Or black lines, so they but produce themselves, — 
This, I do say, — and here my sermon ends, — 
This makes it worth our while to tenderly 
Handle a state of things which mend we might, 
Mar we may, but which meanwhile helps so far. 
Therefore my end is, save society. 

" And that's all ? " twangs the never-railing taunt 
O' the foe. " No novelty, creativeness, 
Mark of the master that renews the age ? " 
" Nay, all that ? " rather will demur my judge 
I look to hear some day, — nor friend nor foe, — 
" Did you attain, then, to perceive that God 
Knew what he undertook when he made things ? " 
Ay : that my task was to co-operate 
Rather than play the rival, chop and change 
The order whence comes all the good we know, 
AVith this, — good's last expression to our sense, — 
That there's a further good conceivable 
Beyond the utmost earth can realize ; 



193 



194 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

And, therefore, that to change the agency, 

The evil whereby good is brought about, — 

Try to make good do good as evil does, — 

Were just as if a chemist, wanting white, 

And knowing black ingredients bred the dye, 

Insisted these, too, should be white forsooth. 

Correct the evil, mitigate your best, 

Blend mild with harsh, and soften black to gray 

If gray may follow with no detriment 

To the eventual perfect purity ; 

But as for hazarding the main result 

By hoping to anticipate one-half 

In the intermediate process, — no, my friends ! 

This bad world I experience and approve : 

Your good world, — with no pity, courage, hope, 

Fear, sorrow, joy, devotedness, in short, 

Which I account the ultimate of man, 

Of which there's not one day nor hour but brings, 

In- flower or fruit, some sample of success 

Out of this same society I save, — 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 195 

None of it for me ! That I might have none, 
I rapped your tampering knuckles twenty years : 
Such was the task imposed me, such my end. 

Now for the means thereto. Ah, confidence ! 

Keep we together, or part company ? 

This is the critical minute. " Such my end ? " 

Certainly : how could it be otherwise ? 

Can there be question which was the right task, — 

To save, or to destroy, society ? 

Why, even prove, that, by some miracle. 

Destruction were the proper work to choose. 

And that a torch best remedies what's wrong 

I' the temple, whence the long procession wound 

Of powers and beauties, earth's achievements all, — 

The human strength that strove and overthrew j 

The human love, that, weak itself, crowned strength ; 

The instinct, crying, " God is whence I came ! " 

The reason laying down the law, " And such 

His will i' the world must be ! " the leap and shout 

Of genius, " For I hold his very thoughts. 



196 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

The meaning of the mind of him ! " nay, more, 

The ingenuities ; each active force. 

That, turning in a circle on itself, 

Looks neither up nor down, but keeps the spot, 

Mere creature-like, and, for religion, works. 

Works only and works ever, makes and shapes 

And changes, still wrings more of good from less. 

Still stamps some bad out where was worst before, 

So leaves the handiwork, the act and deed. 

Were it but house and land and wealth, to show 

Here was a creature perfect in the kind, — 

Whether as bee, beaver, or behemoth. 

What's the importance ? he has done his work 

For work's sake, worked well, earned a creature's 

praise, — 
I say, concede that same fane, whence deploys. 
Age after age, all this humanity. 
Diverse but ever dear, out of the dark 
Behind the altar into the broad day 
By the portal ; enter, and concede there teocks 
Each lover of free motion and much space 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 197 

A perplexed length of apse and aisle and nave, — 

Pillared roof and carved screen, and what care I ? — 

That irk the movement, and impede the march ; 

Nay, possibly, bring flat upon his nose 

At some odd break-neck angle, by some freak 

Of old-world artistry, that personage. 

Who, could he but have kept his skirts from grief, 

And, catching at the hooks and crooks about, 

Had stepped out on the daylight of our time 

Plainly the man of the age, — still, still, I bar 

Excessive conflagration in the case. 

" Shake the flame freely 1 " shout the multitude : 

The architect approves I stuck my torch 

Inside a good stout lantern, hung its light 

Above the hooks and crooks, and ended so. 

To save society was well : the means 

Whereby to save it, — there begins the doubt 

Permitted you, imperative on me. 

Were mine the best means ? Did I work aright 

With powers appointed me ? since powers denied 

Concern me nothing. 



198 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Well, my work, reviewed 
Fairly, leaves more hope than discouragement. 
First, there's the deed done : what I found I leave ; 
What tottered I kept stable : if it stand 
One month without sustainment, still thank me, 
The twenty years' sustainer ! Now, observe, 
Sustaining is no brilliant self-display. 
Like knocking down, or even setting up. 
Much bustle these necessitate ; and still, 
To vulgar eye, the mightier of the myth 
Is Hercules, who substitutes his own 
For Atlas' shoulder, and supports the globe 
A whole day, — not the passive and obscure 
Atlas who bore ere Hercules was born. 
And is to go on bearing that same load 
When Hercules turns ash on CEta's top. 
'Tis the transition-stage, the tug and strain, 
That strike men : standing still is stupid-like. 
My pressure was too constant on the whole 
For any part's eruption into space 
'Mid sparkles, crackling, and much praise of me. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 1 99 

I saw, that, in the ordinary life, 

Many of the little makes a mass of men 

Important beyond greatness here and there ; 

As certainly as, in life exceptional, 

When old things terminate, and new commence, 

A solitary great man's worth the world. 

God takes the business into his own hands 

At such time : who creates the novel flower 

Contrives to guard, and give it breathing-room : 

I merely tend the corn-field, care for crop, 

And weed no acre thin to let emerge 

What prodigy may stifle there perchance ; 

No, though my eye have noted where he lurks. 

Oh those mute myriads that spoke loud to me ! — 

The eyes that craved to see the light ; the mouths 

That sought the daily bread, and nothing more ; 

The hands that supplicated exercise ; 

Men that had wives, and women that had babes j 

And all these making suit to only live ! 

Was I to turn aside from husbandry. 

Leave hope of harvest for the corn, my care, 



200 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

To play at horticulture, rear some rose 
Or poppy into perfect leaf and bloom, 
. When, 'mid the furrows, up was pleased to sprout 
Some man, cause, system, special interest 
I ought to study, stop the world meanwhile ? 
" But I am liberty, philanthropy. 
Enlightenment, or patriotism, the power 
Whereby you are to stand or fall ! " cries each : 
" Mine, and mine only, be the flag you flaunt ! " 
And when I venture to object, " Meantime, 
What of yon myriads with no flag at all, — 
My crop, which who flaunts flag must tread across ? ' 
" Now, this it is to have a puny mind ! " 
Admire my mental prodigies : " down, down. 
Ever at home o' the level and the low, 
There bides he brooding ! Could he look above, 
With less of the owl, and more of the eagle eye, 
He'd see there's no way helps the little cause 
Like the attainment of the great. Dare first 
The chief emprise ; dispel yon cloud between 
The sun and us ; nor fear, that, though our heads 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 2^ 

Find earlier warmth and comfort from his ray, 

What lies about our feet, the multitude, 

Will fail of benefaction presently. 

Come, now, let each of us a while cry truce 

To special interests ; make common cause 

Against the adversary ; or perchance 

Mere dullard to his own plain interest ! 

Which of us will you choose ? Since needs must be 

Some one o' the warring causes you incline 

To hold, i' the main, has right, and should prevail, 

Why not adopt and give it prevalence ? 

Choose strict faith or lax incredulity, — 

King, caste, and cultus, — or the rights of man, 

Sovereignty of each Proudhon o'er himself, 

And all that follows in just consequence ; 

Go free the stranger from a foreign yoke j 

Or stay, concentrate energy at home ; 

Succeed ! — when he deserves, the stranger will ; 

Comply with the great nation's impulse, print 

By force of arms, — since reason pleads in vain, 

And, 'mid the sweet compulsion, pity weeps, — 



202 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau on the universe ! 

Snub the Great Nation, cure the impulsive itch 

With smartest fillip on a restless nose 

Was ever launched by thumb and finger ! Bid 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau first repeal the tax 

On pig-tails and pomatum, and then mind 

Abstruser matters for next century ! 

Is your choice made ? Why, then, act up to choice ! 

Leave the illogical touch, now here, now there, 

I' the way of work ; the tantalizing help 

First to this, then the other opposite ; 

The blowing hot and cold, sham policy, 

Sure ague of the mind, and nothing more, 

Disease of the perception or the will, 

That fain would hide in a fine name ! Your choice j 

Speak it out, and condemn yourself thereby ! " 

Well, Leicester Square is not the Residenz : 
Instead of shrugging shoulder, turning friend 
The deaf ear with a wink to the police, 
I'll answer — by a question, wisdom's mode. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 203 

How many years, o' the average, do men 
Live in this world ? Some score, say computists. 
Quintuple me that term, and give mankind ^ 

The likely hundred, and with all my heart 
rl'U take your task upon me, work your way, 
Concentrate energy on some one cause ; 
Since, counsellor, I also have my cause. 
My flag, my faith in its effect, my hope 
In its eventful triumph for the good 
O' the world. And once upon a time, when I 
Was like all you, — mere voice, and nothing more, — 
Myself took wings, soared sunward, and thence sang, 
" Look where I live i' the loft ! come up to me. 
Groundlings, nor grovel longer ! gain this height. 
And prove you breathe here better than below ! 
Why, what emancipation far and wide 
Will follow in a trice ! They too can soar, 
Each tenant of the earth's circumference 
Claiming to elevate humanity j 
They also must attain such altitude, 
Live in the luminous circle that surrounds 



204 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

The planet, not the leaden orb itself. 

Press out, each point, from surface to yon verge 

Which one has gained and guaranteed your realm ! 

Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught. 

Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mine 

Forever ! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct, 

Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth 

Of wildwood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there, 

Imparting exultation to the hills ! 

Sweep of the swath when only the winds walk, 

And waft my words above the grassy sea 

Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome, — 

Hear ye not still, " Be Italy again " ? 

And ye — what strikes the panic to your heart ? 

Decrepit council-chambers, where some lamp 

Drives the unbroken black three paces off 

From where the graybeards huddle in debate, 

Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers one 

Like tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt. 

And what they think is fear, and what suspends 

The breath in them is not the plaster-patch 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 205 

Time disengages from the painted wall 

Where Raphael moulderingly bids adieu, 

Nor tick of the insect turning tapestry 

To dust, which a queen's finger traced of old ; 

But some word, resonant, redoubtable, 

Of who once felt upon his head a hand 

Whereof the head now apprehends his foot. 

" Light in Rome, law in Rome, and liberty 

O' the soul in Rome, — the free Church, the free State ! 

Stamp out the nature that's best typified 

By its embodiment in Peter's dome. 

The scorpion-body with the greedy pair 

Of outstretched nippers, either colonnade 

Agape for the advance of heads and hearts ! " 

There's one cause for you ! — one, and only one ; 

For I am vocal through the universe, 

I' the work-shop, manufactory, exchange 

And market-place, seaport and custom-house, 

O' the frontier : listen if the echoes die : — 

" Unfettered commerce ! Power to speak and hear, 

And print and read ! The universal vote ! 



2o6 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Its rights for labor ! " This, with much beside, 

I spoke when I was voice, and nothing more, 

But altogether such a one as you 

My censors. " Voice, and nothing more, indeed ! " 

Re-echoes round me : " that's the censure ; there's 

Involved the ruin of you soon or late ! 

Voice, — when its promise beat the empty air ; 

And nothing more, — when solid earth's your stage, 

And we desiderate performance, deed 

For word, the realizing all you dreamed 

In the old days : now, for deed, we find at door 

O' the council-chamber posted, mute as mouse, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, sentry and safeguard 

O' the graybeards all a-chuckle, cowl to cape. 

Who challenge Judas — that's endearment's style — 

To stop their mouths, or let escape grimace. 

While they keep cursing Italy and him. 

The power to speak, hear, print, and read, is ours ? 

Ay, we learn where and how, when clapped inside 

A convict-transport bound for cool Cayenne ! 

The universal vote we have ; its urn 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 207 

We also have, where votes drop, fingered o'er 

By the universal prefect. Say, Trade's free, 

And Toil turned master out o' the slave it was : 

What then ? These feed man's stomach ; but his soul 

Craves finer fare, nor lives by bread alone, 

As somebody says somewhere. Hence you stand 

Proved and recorded either false or weak. 

Faulty in promise or performance : which ? '* 

Neither, I hope. Once pedestalled on earth, 

To act, not speak, I found earth was not air. 

I saw that multitude of mine, and not 

The nakedness and nullity of air, 

Fit only for a voice to float in free. 

Such eyes I saw that ctaved the light alone ! 

Such mouths that wanted bread, and nothing else ! 

Such hands that supplicated handiwork ! 

Men with the wives, and women with the babes ; 

Yet all these pleading just to live, not die ! 

Did I believe one whit less in belief. 

Take truth for falsehood, wish the voice revoked 

That told the truth to heaven for earth to hear ? 



2o8 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU. 

No : this should be, and shall ; but when and how ? 

At what expense to these who average 

Your twenty years of life, my computists ? 

" Not bread alone," but bread before all else, 

For these : the bodily want serve first, said I : 

If earth-space and the lifetime help not here, 

Where is the good of body having been ? 

But helping body, if we somewhat balk 

The soul of finer fare, such food's to find 

Elsewhere and afterward, — all indicates. 

Even this selfsame fact, — that soul can starve, 

Yet body still exist its twenty years : 

While, stint the body, there's an end at once 

O' the revel in the fancy that Rome's free. 

And superstition's fettered, and one prints 

Whate'er one pleases, and who pleases reads 

The same, and speaks out, and, is spoken to ; 

And divers hundred thousand fools may vote 

A vote untampered with by one wise man, 

And so elect Barabbas deputy 

In lieu of his concurrent. I, who trace 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 209 

The purpose written on the face of things 

For my behoof and guidance (whoso needs 

No such sustainment, sees beneath my signs, 

Proves what I take for writing, penmanship, 

Scribble, and flourish with no sense for me 

O' the sort I solemnly go spelling out : 

Let him ! there's certain work of mine to show 

Alongside his work ; which gives warranty 

Of shrewder vision in the workman, judge !), — 

I, who trace Providence without a break 

I' the plan of things, drop plumb on this plain print 

Of an intention with a view to good. 

That man is made in sympathy with man 

At outset of existence, so to speak ; 

But in dissociation, more and more, 

Man from his fellow, as their lives advance 

In culture : still humanity, that's born 

A mass, keeps flying off, fining away 

Ever into a multitude of points. 

And ends in isolation, each from each : 

Peerless above i' the sky, the pinnacle ; 



2IO PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Absolute contact, fusion, all below 
At the base of being. How comes this about ? — 
This stamp of God, characterizing man, 
And nothing else but man, in the universe, — 
That while he feels with man (to use man's speech) 
I' the little things of life, — its fleshly wants 
Of food and rest and health and happiness, 
Its simplest spirit-motions, loves and hates, 
Hopes, fears, soul-cravings on the ignoblest scale, 
O' the fellow-creature, — owns the bond at base, — 
He tends to freedom and divergency 
In the upward progress, plays the pinnacle 
When life's at greatest ? (grant again the phrase j 
Because there's neither great nor small in hfe.) 
" Consult thou for thy kind that have the eyes 
To see, the mouths to eat, the hands to work, 
Men with the wives, and women with the babes," 
Prompts Nature. " Care thou for thyself alone 
I' the conduct of the mind God made thee with j 
Think as if man had never thought before ; 
Act as if all creation hung attent 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 2 

On the acting of such faculty as thine. 

To take prime pattern from thy masterpiece." 

Nature prompts also : neither law obeyed 

To the uttermost by any heart and soul 

We know or have in record \ both of them 

Acknowledged blindly by whatever man 

We ever knew or heard of in this world. 

" Will you have why and wherefore, and the fact 

Made plain as pikestaff?" modern science asks. 

" That mass man sprung from was a jelly-lump 

Once on a time : he kept an after-course 

Through fish and insect, reptile, bird, and beast, 

Till he attained to be an ape at last, 

Or last but one. And if this doctrine shock 

In aught the natural pride " — Friend, banish fear, 

The natural humility replies. 

Do you suppose, even I, poor potentate, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, who once ruled the roast, — 

I was born able at all points to ply 

My tools? or did I have to learn my trade ? 

Practise as exile ere perform as prince ? 



212 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

The world knows something of my ups and downs ; 

But grant me time, give me the management 

And manufacture of a model me, — 

Me fifty-fold, a prince without a flaw, — 

Why, there's no social grade, the sordidest, 

My embryo potentate should blink and 'scape. 

King, all the better he was cobbler once, 

He sjiould know, sitting on the throne, how tastes 

Life to who sweeps the doorway. But life's hard, 

Occasion rare : you cut probation short. 

And, being half instructed, on the stage 

You shuffle through your part as best you may, 

And bless your stars, as I do. God takes time. 

I like the thought he should have lodged me once 

I' the hole, the cave, the hut, the tenement. 

The mansion, and the palace ; made me learn 

The feel o' the first, before I found myself 

Loftier i' the last, not more emancipate : 

From first to last of lodging, I was I, 

And not at all the place that harbored me. 

Do I refuse to follow farther yet 



.9^ VIO UR OF SO CIE TY. 2 1 3 

I' the backwardness ; repine if tree and flower, 

Mountain or streamlet, were my dwelling-place 

Before I gained enlargement, grew mollusk ? 

As well account that way for many a thrill 

Of kinship I confess to with the powers 

Called Nature : animate, inanimate, 

In parts or in the whole, there's something there 

Man-like, that, somehow, meets the man in me. 

My pulse goes altogether with the heart 

O' the Persian, that old Xerxes, when he stayed 

His march to conquest of the world, a day 

I' the desert, for the sake of one superb 

Plane-tree which queened it there in solitude ; 

Giving her neck its necklace, and each arm 

Its armlet, suiting soft waist, snowy side, 

With cincture and apparel. Yes, I lodged 

In those successive tenements ; perchance 

Taste yet the straitness of them while I stretch 

Limb, and enjoy new liberty the more. 

And some abodes are lost or ruinous ; 

Some patched up and pieced out, and so transformed, 



214 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

They still accommodate the traveller 

His day of life-time. Oh ! you count the links j 

Descry no bar of the unbroken man ? 

Yes ; and who welds a lump of ore, suppose 

He likes to make a chain, and not a bar, 

And reach by link on link, link small, link large, 

Out to the due length, — why, there's forethought still 

Outside o' the series, forging at one end ; 

While, at the other, there's — no matter what 

The kind of critical intelligence 

Believing that last link had last but one 

For parent, and no link was, first of all, 

Fitted to anvil, hammered into shape. 

Else I accept the doctrine, and deduce 

This duty, — that I recognize mankind 

In all its height and depth, and length and breadth. 

Mankind i' the main have little wants, not large : 

I, being of will and power to help, i' the main. 

Mankind, must help the least wants first. My friend, 

That is, my foe, without such power and will, 

May plausibly concentrate all he wields, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 215 

And do his best at helping some large want, 
Exceptionally noble cause, that's seen 
Subordinate enough from where I stand. 
As he helps, I helped once, when like himself, 
Unable to help better, work more wide ; 
And so would work with heart and hand to-day, 
Did only computists confess a fault, 
. And multiply the single score by five, — 
Five only, — give man's life its hundred years. 
Change life, in me shall follow change to match. 
Time were, then, to work here, there, everywhere, 
By turns, and try experiment at ease ! 
Full time to mend as well as mar : why wait 
The slow and sober uprise all around 
O' the building ? Let us run up, right to roof, 
Some sudden marvel, piece of perfectness. 
And testify what we intend the whole ! 
Is the world losing patience ? " Wait ! " say we : 
" There's time : no generation needs to die 
Unsolaced : you've a century in store ! " 
But no : I sadly let the voices wing 



2l6 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Their way i' the upper vacancy, nor test 

Truth on this solid as I promised once. 

Well, and what is there to be sad about ? 

The world's the world, life's life, and nothing else. 

'Tis part of life, a property to prize. 

That those o' the higher sort engaged i' the world 

Should fancy they can change its ill to good, 

AVrong to right, ugliness to beauty ; find 

Enough success in fancy turning fact 

To keep the sanguine kind in countenance, 

And justify the hope that busies them : 

Failure enough, — to who can follow change 

Beyond their vision ; see new good prove ill 

I' the consequence ; see blacks and whites of life 

Shift square indeed, but leave the checkered face 

Unchanged i' the main, — failure enough for such 

To bid ambition keep the whole from change 

As their best service. I hope nought beside. 

No, my brave thinkers, whom I recognize 

Gladly, myself the first, as, in a sense. 

All that our world's worth, flower and fruit of man ! 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 217 

Such minds myself award supremacy 

Over the common insignificance, 

When only Mind's in question : Body bows 

To quite another government, you know. 

Be Kant crowned king o' the castle in the air ! 

Hans Slouch — his own and children's mouths to feed 

I' the hovel on the ground — wants meat, nor chews 

" The Pure Critique of Reason " in exchange. 

But, now, suppose I could allow your claims. 

And quite change life to please you : would it please ? 

Would life comport with change, and still be life ? 

Ask, now, a doctor for a remedy : 

There's his prescription. Bid him point you out 

Which of the five or six ingredients saves 

The sick man. " Such the efiicacity ? 

Then why not dare and do things in one dose 

Simple and pure, all virtue, no alloy 

Of the idle drop and powder ? " What's his word ? 

The efficacity, neat, were neutralized : 

It wants dispersing and retarding ; nay, 

Is put upon its mettle, plays its part 



2l8 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Precisely through such hinderance everywhere, 

Finds some mysterious give and take i' the case, 

Some gain by opposition, he foregoes 

Should he unfetter the medicament. 

So with this thought of yours that fain would work 

Free in the world : it wants just what it finds, — 

The ignorance, stupidity, the hate. 

Envy and malice and uncharitableness. 

That bar your passage, break the flow of you 

Down from those happy heights where many a cloud 

Combined to give you birth, and bid you be 

The royalest of rivers : on you glide 

Silverly till you reach the summit-edge j 

Then over, on to all that ignorance. 

Stupidity, hate, envy, bluffs, and blocks, 

Posted to fret you into foam and noise. 

What of it ? Up you mount in minute mist. 

And bridge the chasm that crushed your quietude, 

A spirit-rainbow, earth-born jewelry 

Outsparkling the insipid firmament 

Blue above Terni and its orange-trees. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 219 

Do not mistake me ! You, too, have your rights. 
Hans must not burn Kant's house above his head 
Because, he cannot understand Kant's book ; 
And still less must Hans' pastor burn Kant's self 
Because Kant understands some books too well. 
But, justice seen to on this little point, 
Answer me, is it manly, is it sage. 
To stop and struggle with arrangements here 
It' took so many lives, so much of toil. 
To tinker up into efficiency ? 
Can't you contrive to operate at once — 
Since time is short, and art is long — to show 
Your quality i' the world, whate'er you boast, 
Without this fractious call on folks to crush 
The world together just to set you free, 
Admire the capers you will cut perchance, 
Nor mind the mischief to your neighbors ? 

" Age ! 
Age and experience, bring discouragement," 
Xou taunt me : I maintain the opposite. 



2 20 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Am I discouraged, who — perceiving health, 

Strength, beauty, as they tempt the eye of soul, 

Are uncombinable with flesh and blood — 

Resolve to let my body live its best, 

And leave my soul what better yet may be, 

Or not be, in this Hfe or afterward ? — 

In either fortune, wiser than who waits 

Till magic art procure a miracle. 

In virtue of my very confidence 

Mankind ought to outgrow its babyhood, 

I prescribe rocking, deprecate rough hands, 

While thus the cradle holds it past mistake. 

Indeed, my task's the harder, — equable 

Sustainment everywhere, all strain, no push, — 

Whereby friends credit me with indolence, 

Apathy, hesitation. " Stand stock-still 

If able to move briskly ? ' All a-strain,' — 

So must we compliment your passiveness ? 

Sound asleep, rather ! " 

Just the judgment passed 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 

Upon a statue, luckless like myself 

I saw at Rome once ! 'Twas some artist's whim 

To cover all the accessories close 

I' the group, and leave you only Laocoon, 

With neither sons nor serpents to denote 

The purpose of his gesture. Then a crowd 

Was called to try the question ; criticise 

Wherefore such energy of legs and arms, 

Nay, eyeballs starting from the socket. One, — 

I give him leave to write my history, — 

Only one, said, " I think the gesture strives 

Against some obstacle we cannot see." 

All the rest made their minds up : " 'Tis a yawn 

Of sheer fatigue subsiding to repose ; 

The statue's ' Somnolency ' clear enough ! " 

There, my arch stranger-friend, my audience both 
And arbitress, you have one-half your wish. 
At least, — you know the thing I tried to do 
All, so far, to my praise and glory j all 
Told as befits the self-apologist, 



222 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

' Who ever promises a candid sweep 

And clearance of those errors, miscalled crimes, 
None knows more, none laments so much, as he. 
And ever rises from confession, proved 
A god whose fault was — trying to be man. 
Just so, fair judge, —if I read smile aright, — 
I condescend to figure in your eyes 
As biggest heart and best of Europe's friends. 
And hence my failure. God will estimate 
Success one day; and, in the mean time, —you f 

I dare say there's some fancy of the sort 

Frolicking round this final pufif I send 

To die up yonder in the ceiling-rose, — 

Some consolation-st^te, we losers win f 

A plague of the return :t0 ^^ J __ j __ i 

Bid this, meant that, hope^, feared, the other thing ! ' 

Autobiography, adieu ! Theres^t 

Shall make amends, be pure Wame,teto7 

And falsehood; not \h^ ineffective .tru% 

But Thiers-and-Victor-Hugo exercise. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 223 

Hear what I naver was, but might have been 
I' the better world where goes tobacco-smoke ! 
Here lie the dozen volumes of my life j 
(Did I say " lie " ? the pregnant word will serve.) 
Cut on to the concluding chapter, though ; 
Because the little hours begin to striktf^ 
Hurry Thiers-Hugo to the labor's end ! 

Something like this the unwritten chapter reads'^ 

Exemplify the situation thus ! 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, being, no dispula^ 

Absolute mistress, chose the Assembly, irs^ 

To serve her ; chose this man, its president: 

Afterward, to serve also, — special'y 

To see that they did service one and a;ll.. 

And now the proper term of years was outt 

When the head .-servant must vacate his fliace;; 

And nothing lay>s@ patent to the world 

Astthat his fellow- sfirvaots one and all 

Wjere >— mildly .make -w^^ mention — knaves or foolsj* j_. 



224 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Each of them with his purpose flourished full 

I' tlie face of you by word and impudence, 

Or filtered slyly out by nod and wink, 

And nudge upon your sympathetic rib ; 

That not one minute more did knave or fool 

Mean to keep faith, and serve as he had sworn 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, once that head away. 

Why did such swear, except to get the chance. 

When time should ripen and confusion bloom, 

Of putting Hohenstielers-Schwangauese . 

To the true use of human property ? 

Restoring souls and bodies, — this to pope, 

And that to king, that other to his planned 

Perfection of a share-and-share-alike, 

That other still to empire absolute 

In shape of the head servant's very self 

Transformed to master whole and sole : each scheme 

Discussible, concede one circumstance, — 

That each scheme's parent were, beside himself, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, not her serving-man 

Sworn to do service in the way she chose 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 225 

Rather than his way, — way superlative, 

Only — by some infatuation — his 

And his and his, and every one's but hers 

Who stuck to just the Assembly and the head. 

I make no doubt the head, too, had his dream 

Of doing sudden duty swift and sure 

On all that heap of untrustworthiness ; 

Catching each vaunter of the villany 

He meant to perpetrate when time was ripe. 

Once the head servant fairly out of doors ; 

And caging here a knave, and there a fool, 

Cry, " Mistress of the servants, these and me, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau ! I, their trusty head. 

Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting here. 

That's stopped, extinguished, by my vigilance. 

Your property is safe again ; but mark ! 

Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trust 

Too lightly. Leave my hands their charge a while ! 

I know your business better than yourself : 

Let me alone about it ! Some fine day, 

Once we are rid of the embarrassment, 

IS 



2 26 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

You shall look up and see your longings crowned ! " 

Such fancy may have tempted to be false ; 

But this man chose truth, and was wiser so. 

He recognized, that, for great minds i' the world, 

There is no trial like the appropriate one 

Of leaving Little minds their liberty 

Of littleness to blunder on through life ; 

Now aiming at right end by foolish means. 

Now at absurd achievement through the aid 

Of good and wise means, — trial to acquiesce 

In folly's life-long privilege, though with power 

To do the little minds the good they need, 

Despite themselves, by just abolishing 

Their right to play the part and fill the place 

I' the scheme of things He schemed who made alike 

Great minds and little minds, saw use for each. 

Could the orb sweep those puny particles 

It just half-lights at distance, hardly leads 

I' the leash ; sweep out each speck of them from space 

They anticise in with their days and nights 

And whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 227 

And all that fruitless individual life 

One cannot lend a beam to but they spoil ; 

Sweep them into itself, and so, one star, 

Preponderate henceforth i' the heritage 

Of heaven ! No ! in less senatorial phrase, 

The man endured to help, not save outright, 

The multitude, by substituting him 

For them, his knowledge, will, and way, for God's ; 

Not change the world, such as it is, and was, 

And will be, for some other, suiting all 

Except the purpose of the Maker. No ! 

He saw that weakness, wickedness, will be. 

And therefore should be ; that the perfect man. 

As we account perfection, — at most pure 

O' the special gold, whate'er the form it take. 

Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refined 

I' the crucible of life, whereto the powers 

Of the refiner, one and all, were flung 

To feed the flame their utmost, — e'en that block. 

He holds out "breathlessly triumphant, — breaks 

Into some poisonous ore, its opposite, 



2 28 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

At the very purest, so compensating 

The Adversary — what if we believe ? — 

For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff. 

See the sage, with the hunger for the truth, 

And see his system that's all true, except 

The one weak place that's stanchioned by a lie ! 

The moralist, that walks with head erect 

I' the crystal charity of air so long, 

Until a stumble, and the man's one mire ! ^ 

Philanthropy undoes the social knot 

With axe-edge ; makes love room 'twixt head and trunk ! 

Religion — but enough : the thing's too clear ! 

Well, if these sparks break out i' the greenest tree, 

Our topmost of performance, yours and mine. 

What will be done i' the dry ineptitude 

Of ordinary mankind, bark and bole. 

All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth ? 

Therefore throughout his term of servitude 

He did the appointed service, and forbore 

Extraneous action that were duty else. 

Done by some other servant, idle now 



229 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 

Or mischievous : no matter, each his own, — ■ 
Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame ! 
He suffered them strut, prate, and brag their best \ 
Squabble at odds on every point save one. 
And there shake hands ; agree to trifle time j 
Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry, 
" Wait till the head be off the shoulders here ! 
Then comes my king, my pope, my autocrat, 
My socialist republic to her own, — 
To wit, that property of only me, 



Free, forsooth, and expects I keep her so ! " — 

Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismay 

His silence paid no tribute to that noise, 

They turned on him. " Dumb menace in that mouth, 

Malice in that unstridulosity ! 

He cannot but intend some stroke of state 

Shall signalize his passage into peace 

Out of the creaking ; hinder transference 

O' the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king, 

Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic ! That's 



230 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Exact the cause his lips unlocked would cry ! 

Therefore be stirring ; brave, beard, bully him ! 

Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints, 

The electoral body short at once ! who did 

May do again, and undo us beside. 

Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence, 

The right to parry any thrust in play 

We peradventure please to meditate ! " 

And so forth ; creak, creak, creak : and ne'er a line 

His locked mouth oped the wider, till at last, 

O' the long degraded and insulting day. 

Sudden the clock told it was judgment- time. 

Then he addressed himself to speak indeed 

To the fools, not knaves : they saw him walk straight 

down 
Each step of the eminence, as he first engaged, 
And stand at last o' the level, — all he swore. 
" People, and not the people's varletry, — 
This is the task you set myself and these ! 
Thus I performed my part of it, and thus 
They thwarted me throughout, here, here, and here : 






1 



SA VI O UR OF SO CIE TY. 231 

Study each instance ! yours the loss, not mine. 

What they intend now is demonstrable 

As plainly : here's such man ; and here's such mode 

Of making you some other than the thing 

You, wisely or unwisely, choose to be, 

And only set him up to keep you so. 

Do you approve this ? Yours the loss, not mine. 

Do you condemn it ? There's a remedy. 

Take me, — who know your mind, and mean your good, 

With clearer head and stouter arm than they, 

Or you, or, haply, anybody else, — 

And make me master for the moment ! Choose 

What time, what power you trust me with : I, too, 

Will choose as frankly ere I trust myself 

With time and power : they must be adequate 

To the end and aim, since mine the loss, with yours, 

If means be wanting : once their worth approved, 

Grant them, and I shall forthwith operate — 

Ponder it well ! — to the extremest stretch 

O' the power you trust me ; if with unsuccess, 

God wills it, and there's nobody to blame." 



232 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Whereon the people answered with a shout, 
" The trusty one ! no tricksters any more ! " 
How could they other ? He was in his place. 

What followed ? Just what he foresaw, what proved 

The soundness of both judgments, — his, o' the knaves 

And fools, each trickster with his dupe \ and theirs, 

The people, in what head and arm should help. 

There was uprising, masks dropped, flags unfurled, 

Weapons outflourished in the wind, my faith ! 

Heavily did he let his fist fall plumb 

On each perturber of the public peace. 

No matter whose the wagging head it broke, — 

From bald-pate craft and greed and impudence 

Of night-hawk at first chance to prowl and prey 

For glory and a little gain beside, 

Passing for eagle in the dusk of the age. 

To florid head-top, foamy patriotism. 

And t-nbunitial daring, breast laid bare 

Through confidence in rectitude, with hand 

On private pistol in the pocket : these, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 233 

And all the dupes of these, who lent themselves 

As dust and feather do to help offence 

O' the wind that whirls them at you, then subsides 

In safety somewhere, leaving filth afloat, 

Annoyance you may brush from eyes and beard, — 

These he stopped ; bade the wind's spite howl or whine 

Its worst outside the building, wind conceives 

Meant to be pulled together, and become 

Its natural playground so. AVhat foolishness 

Of dust or feather proved importunate, 

And fell 'twixt thumb and finger, found them gripe 

To detriment of bulk and buoyancy. 

Then followed silence and submission. Next 

The inevitable comment came on work 

And work's cost : he was censured as profuse 

Of human life and liberty ; too swift 

And thorough his procedure, who had lagged 

At the outset, lost the opportunity 

Through timid scruples as to right and wrong. 

" There's no such certain mark of a small mind " 

(So did Sagacity explain the fault) 



234 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

" As when it needs must square away, and sink 
To its own small dimensions, private scale 
Of right and wrong, — humanity i' the large, 
The right and wrong of the universe, forsooth ! 
This man addressed himself to guard and guide 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau. When the case demands 
He frustrate villany in the ^gg, unhatched, 
With easy stamp and minimum of pang 
E'en to the punished reptile, ' There's my oath 
Restrains my foot,' objects our guide and guard \ 
' I must leave guardianship and guidance now ; 
Rather than stretch one handbreath of the law, 
I am bound to see it break from end to end. 
First show me death i' the body politic ; 
Then prescribe pill and potion, what may please 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau ! all is for her sake : 
'Twas she ordained my service should be so. 
What if the event demonstrate her unwise, 
If she unwill the thing she willed before ? 
I hold to the letter, and obey the bond, 
And leave her to perdition loyally.' 



SA VIO UR OF SOCIE TV. 235 

Whence followed thrice the expenditure we blame 
Of human life and liberty : for want 
O' the by-blow came deliberate butcher's-work ! " 
" Elsewhere go carry your complaint," bade he. 
" Least, largest, there's one law for all the minds, 
Here or above : be true at any price ! 
'Tis just o' the great scale that such happy stroke 
Of falsehood would be found a failure. Truth 
Still stands unshaken at her base by me, 
Reigns paramount i' the world, for the large good 
O' the long late generations, — I and you 
Forgotten like this buried foolishness ! 
Not so the good I rooted in its grave." 

This is why he refused to break his oath ; 
Rather appealed to the people j gained the power 
To act as he thought best ; then used it once 
For all, no matter what the consequence 
To knaves and fools. As thus began his sway. 
So, through its twenty years, one rule of right 
Sufficed him : govern for the many first, 



236 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

The poor mean multitude, all mouths and eyes \ 

Bid the few, better favored in the brain, 

Be patient, nor presume on privilege, 

Help him, or else be quiet, — never crave 

That he help them, — increase, forsooth, the gulf 

Yawning so terribly 'twixt mind and mind 

I' the world here, which his purpose was to block 

At bottom, were it by an inch, and bridge. 

If by a filament, no more, at top. 

Equalize things a little ! And the way 

He took to work that purpose out was plain 

Enough to intellect and honesty 

And — superstition style it if you please, 

So long as you allow there was no lack 

O' the quality imperative in man — 

Reverence. You see deeper ? thus saw he, 

And, by the light he saw, must walk : how else 

Was he to do his part ? the man's, with might 

And main, and not a faintest touch of fear. 

Sure he was in the hand of God, who comes 

Before arid after, with a work to do 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 237 

Which no man helps nor hinders. Thus the man, — 

So timid when the business was to touch 

The uncertain order of humanity, 

Imperil, for a problematic cure 

Of grievance on the surface, any good 

I' the deep of things, dim yet discernible, — 

This same man, so irresolute before. 

Show him a true excrescence to cut sheer, 

A devil's-graft on God's foundation-stone, 

Then — no complaint of indecision more ! 

He wrenched out the whole canker, root and branch, 

Deaf to who cried the world would tumble in 

At its four corners if he touched a twig. 

Witness that lie of lies, arch-infamy. 

When the Republic, with all life involved 

In just this law, — " Each people rules itself 

Its own way, not as any stranger please," — 

Turned, and, for first proof she was living, bade 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau fasten on the throat 

Jf the first neighbor that claimed benefit 

O' the law herself established : " Hohenstiel 



238 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

For Hohenstielers ! Rome, by parity 

Of reasoning, for Romans ? That's a jest 

Wants proper treatment, — lancet-puncture suits 

The proud flesh : Rome ape Hohenstiel forsooth ! " 

And so the siege and slaughter and success, 

Whereof we nothing doubt that Hohenstiel 

Will have to pay the price in God's good time ; 

Which does not always fall on Saturday, 

When the world looks for wages. Anyhow, 

He found this infamy triumphant. Well, 

Sagacity suggested, make this speech : — 

" The work was none of mine : suppose wrong wait/ 

Stand over for redressing ? Mine for me ; 

My predecessors' work on their own head ! 

Meantime, there's plain advantage, should we leave 

Things as we find them. Keep Rome manacled 

Hand and foot : no fear of unruliness ! 

Her foes consent to even seem our friends 

So long, no longer. Then there's glory got 

I' the boldness and bravado to the world. 

The disconcerted world must grin and bear 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY, 239 

The old saucy writing, — ' Grunt thereat who may : 

So shall things be, for such my pleasure is, — 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau.' How that reads in Rome, 

I' the capitol where Brennus broke his pate ! 

And what a flourish for our journalists ! " 

Only it was nor read nor flourished of, 

Since not a moment did such glory stay 

Excision of the canker ! Out it came, 

Root and branch, with much roaring, and some blood, 

And plentiful abuse of him from friend 

And foe. Who cared ? Not Nature, that assuaged 

The pain, and set the patient on his legs 

Promptly : the better ! — had it been the worse, 

'Tis Nature you must try conclusions with. 

Not he j since nursing canker kills the sick 

For certain, while to cut may cure at least 

" Ah," groaned a second time Sagacity, 

" Again the little mind, precipitate, 

Rash, rude, when even in the right, as here ! 

The great mind knows the power of gentleness ; 

Only tries force because persuasion fails. 



240 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Had this man, by prelusive trumpet-blast, 

Signified, ' Truth and Justice mean to come j 

Nay, fast approach your threshold ! Ere they knock^ 

See that the house be set in order, swept 

And garnished, windows shut, and doors thrown wide. 

The free State comes to visit the free Church : 

Receive her ! or — or — never mind what else ! ' 

Thus moral suasion heralding brute force, 

How had he seen the old abuses die, 

And new life kindle here, there, everywhere. 

Roused simply by that mild yet potent spell, — 

Beyond or beat of drum, or stroke of sword, — 

Public opinion ! " 

" How, indeed ? " he asked, 
" When all to see, after some twenty years. 
Were your own fool-face waiting for the sight. 
Faced by as wide a grin from ear to ear 
O' the knaves, that, while the fools were waiting, worked. 
Broke yet another generation's heart, — 
Twenty years' respite helping ! Teach your nurse 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 241 

' Compliance with, before you suck, the teat ! ' 
Find what that means, and meanwhile hold your 
tongue ! " 

Whereof the war came which he knew must be. 

Now, this had proved the dry-rot of the race 

He ruled o'er, that in the old day, when was need 

They fought for their own liberty and life, 

Well did they fight, none better : whence such love 

Of fighting somehow still for fighting's sake 

Against no matter whose the liberty 

And life, so long as self-conceit should crow 

And clap the wing, while Justice sheathed her claw, — 

That what had been the glory of the world, 

When thereby came the world's good, grew its plague 

Now that the champion-armor, donned to dare 

The dragon once, was clattered up and down 

Highway and by-path of the world at peace, 

Merely to mask marauding, or for sake 

O' the shine and rattle that apprised the fields 



242 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau was a fighter yet, 
And would be till the weary world suppressed 
A peccant humor out of fashion now. 
Accordingly, the world spoke plain at last j 
Promised to punish who next played with arms. 

So at his advent, such discomfiture 

Taking its true shape of beneficence, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, half sad and part wise, 

Sat : if with wistful eye reverting oft 

To each pet weapon rusty on its peg, 

Yet with a sigh of satisfaction too. 

That, peacefulness become the law, herself 

Got the due share of godsends in its train, 

Cried shame, and took advantage quietly. 

Still, so the dry-rot had been nursed into 

Blood, bones, and marrow, that, from worst to best, 

All, — clearest brains and soundest hearts, save here,. 

All had this lie acceptable for law 

Plain as the sun at noonday, — " War is best, 

Peace is worst ; peace we only tolerate 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 243 

As needful preparation for new war : 

War may be for whatever end we will ; 

Peace only as the proper help thereto. 

Such is the law of right and wrong for us, 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau; for the other world, 

As naturally, quite another law. 

Are we content ? — the world is satisfied. 

Discontent ? — then the world must give us leave 

Strike right and left to exercise our arm. 

Torpid of late, through overmuch repose, 

And show its strength is still superlative 

At somebody's expense in life or limb : 

Which done, let peace succeed, and last a year ! " 

Such devil's-doctrine was so judged God's law, 

We say, when this man stepped upon the stage, 

That it had seemed a venial fault at most 

Had he once more obeyed Sagacity. 

" You come i' the happy interval of peace, 

The favorable weariness from war : 

Prolong it ! — artfully, as if intent 

On ending peace as soon as possible. 



244 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAUy 

Quietly so increase the sweets of ease 

And safety, so employ the multitude, 

Put hod and trowel so in idle hands, 

So stuff and stop the wagging jaws with bread, 

That Selfishness shall surreptitiously 

Do Wisdom's office ; whisper in the ear 

Of Hohenstiel-Schwangau, there's a pleasant feel 

In being gently forced down, pinioned fast 

To the easy arm-chair by the pleading arms 

O' the world beseeching her to there abide 

Content with all the harm done hitherto. 

And let herself be petted in return, 

Free to re-wage, in speech and prose and verse, 

The old unjust wars, nay, — in verse and prose 

And speech, — to vaunt new victories, as vile 

A plague o' the future, — so that words suffice 

For present comfort, and no deeds denote 

That — tired of illimitable line on line 

Of boulevard-building, tired o' the theatre 

With the tuneful thousand in their thrones above, 

For glory of the male intelligence, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 245 

And Nakedness in her due niche below, 

For ilkistration of the female use — 

She, 'twixt a yawn and sigh, prepares to slip 

Out of the arm-chair, wants seme blood again 

From over the boundary to color up 

The sheeny sameness, keep the world aware 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau must have exercise 

Despite the petting of the universe ! 

Come, you're a city-builder : what's the way 

Wisdom takes, when time needs that she entice 

Some fierce tribe, castled on the mountain-peak, 

Into the quiet and amenity 

O' the meadow-land below ? By ciying, ' Done 

With fight now, down with fortress ' ? Rather, ' Dare 

On, dare ever, not a stone displaced ! ' ' 

Cries Wisdom, ' Cradle of our ancestors. 

Be bulwark ; give our children safety still ! 

Who of our children please may stoop and taste 

O' the valley-fatness, unafraid j for why ? 

At first alarm, they have thy mother-ribs 

To run upon for refuge : foes forget 



246 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Scarcely what Terror on her vantage-coigne, 

Couchant supreme among the powers of air, 

Watches — prepared to pounce — the country wide ! 

Meanwhile the encouraged valley holds its own, 

From the first hut's adventure in descent, 

Half home, half hiding-place, to dome and spire 

Befitting the assured metropolis : 

Nor means offence to the fort which caps the crag, 

All undismantled of a turret-stone. 

And bears the banner-pole that creaks at times, 

Embarrassed by the old emblazonment. 

When festal days are to commemorate. 

Otherwise left untenanted, no doubt. 

Since, never fear, our myriads from below 

Would rush, if needs were, man the walls once more, 

Renew the exploits of the earlier time 

At moment's notice ! But, till notice sound, 

Inhabit we in ease and opulence ! ' 

And so, till one day thus a notice sounds, 

Not trumpeted, but in a whisper-gust 

Fitfully playing through mute city streets 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 247 

At midnight weary of day's feast and game, — 

* Friends, your famed fort's a ruin past repair ! 

Its use is, to proclaim it had a use 

Stolen away long since. Climb to study there 

How to paint barbican and battlement 

I' the scenes of our new theatre ! We fight 

Now — by forbidding neighbors to sell steel 

Or buy wine, not by blowing out their brains ! 

Moreover, while we let time sap the strength 

O' the walls omnipotent in menace once, 

Neighbors would seem to have prepared surprise j 

Run up defences in a mushroom growth. 

For -all the world like what we boasted : brief, — 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau's policy is peace ! '" 

Ay, so Sagacity advised him filch 

Folly from fools ; handsomely substitute 

The dagger o' lath, while gay they sang and danced 

For that long dangerous sword they liked to feel, 

Even at feast-time, clink and make friends start. 

No ! he said, " Hear the truth, and bear the truth, 



248 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

And bring the truth to bear on all you are 
And do, assured that only good comes thence, 
Whate'er the shape good take ! While I have rule, 
Understand ! — war for war's sake, war for the sake 
O' the good war gets you as war's sole excuse, 
Is damnable, and damned shall be- You want 
Glory? Why, so do I, and so does God. 
Where is it found, — in this paraded shame, — 
One particle of glory ? Once you warred 
For liberty against the world, and won : 
There was the glory. Now you fain would war 
Because the neighbor prospers overmuch ; 
Because there has been silence half an hour, 
Like heaven on earth, without a cannon-shot 
Announcing Hohenstielers-Schwangauese 
Are minded to disturb the jubilee ; 
Because the loud tradition echoes faint. 
And who knows but posterity may doubt 
If the great deeds were ever done at all. 
Much less believe, were such to do again. 
So the event would follow : therefore prove 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 249 

The old power at the expense of somebody ! 

O Glory ! — gilded bubble, bard and sage 

So" nickname rightly, — would thy dance endure 

One moment, would thy mocking make believe 

Only one upturned eye thy ball was gold, 

Hadst thou less breath to buoy thy vacancy 

Than a whole multitude expends in praise. 

Less range for roaming than from head to head 

Of a whole people ? Flit, fall, fly again ; 

Only fix never where the resolute hand 

May prick thee, prove the lie thou art, at once ! 

Give me real intellect to reason with, 

No multitude, no entity that apes 

One wise man, being but a million fools ! 

How and whence wishest glory, thou wise one ? 

Wouldst get it — didst thyself guide Providence — 

By stinting of his due each neighbor round 

In strength and knowledge and dexterity, 

So as to have thy littleness grow large 

By all those somethings once, turned nothings now, 

As children make a molehill mountainous 



250 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

By scooping out the plain into a trench, 

And saving so their favorite from approach? 

Quite otherwise the cheery game of hfe, 

True yet mimetic warfare, whereby man 

Does his best with his utmost, and so ends 

The victor most of all in fair defeat. 

Who thinks, — would he have no one think beside ? 

Who knows, who does, — must other learning die, 

And action perish ? Why, our giant proves 

No better than a dwarf, with rivalry 

Prostrate around him. ' Let the whole face stand 

And try conclusions fairly ! ' he cries first. 

Show me the great man would engage his peer 

Rather by grinning, '■ Cheat, thy gold is brass ! ' 

Than granting, ' Perfect piece of purest ore ! 

Still is it less good mintage, this of mine ? * 

Well, and these right and sound results of soul 

I' the strong and healthy one wise man, — shall such 

Be vainly sought for, scornfully renounced 

I' the multitude that make the entity, — 

The people ? — -to what purpose, if no less. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 251 

In power and purity of soul, below 
The reach of the unit than in multiplied 
Might of the body, vulgarized the more, 
Above, in thick and threefold brutishness ? 
See ! you accept such one wise man, myself: 
Wiser or less wise, still I operate 
From my own stock of wisdom, nor exact 
Of other sort of natures you admire, 
That whoso rhymes a sonnet pays a tax, 
Who paints a landscape dips brush at his cost, 
Who scores a septet true for strings and wind 
Mulcted must be : else how should I impose 
Properly, attitudinize aright. 
Did such conflicting claims as these divert 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau from observing me ? 
Therefore what I find facile, you be sure. 
With effort or without it, you shall dare, — 
You, I aspire to make my better self, 
And truly the Great Nation. No more war 
For war's sake, then ! and — seeing wickedness 
Springs out of folly — no more foolish dread 



252 PRINCE FIOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

O' the neighbor waxing too inordinate 

A rival through his gain of wealth and ease ! 

What? — keep me patient, Powers ! — the people here, 

Earth presses to her heart, nor owns a pride 

Above her pride i' the race all flame and air 

And aspiration to the boundless Great, 

The incommensurably Beautiful, 

Whose very falterings groundward come of flight 

Urged by a pinion all too passionate 

For heaven and what it holds of gloom and glow : 

Bravest of thinkers, bravest of the brave 

Doers, exalt in science, rapturous 

In art, the — more than all — magnetic race 

To fascinate their fellows, mould mankind 

Hohenstiel-Schwangau-fashion, — these, what ? — these 

Will have to abdicate their primacy 

Should such a nation sell them steel untaxed, 

And such another take itself, on hire 

For the natural sen'night, somebody for lord 

Unpatronized by me whose back was turned ? 

Or such another yet would fain build bridge, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 253 

Lay rail, drive tunnel, busy its poor self 
With its appropriate fancy : so there's — flash — 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau up in arms at once ! 
Genius has somewhat of the infantine ; 
But of the childish not a touch nor taint, 
Except through self-will, which, being foolishness, 
Is certain, soon or late, of punishment. 
Which Providence avert ! — and, that it may 
Avert what both of us would so deserve, 
No foolish dread o' the neighbor, I enjoin ! 
By consequence, no wicked war with him, 
While I rule ! 

Does that mean — no war at all 
When just the wickedness I here proscribe 
Comes, haply, from the neighbor ? Does my speech 
Precede the praying that you beat the sword 
To plough-share, and the spear to pruning-hook, 
And sit down henceforth under your own vine 
And fig-tree through the sleepy summer month, 
Letting what hurly-burly please explode 



2 54 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

On the other side the mountain-frontier ? No, 

Beloved ! I foresee and I announce 

Necessity of warfare in one case, 

For one cause : one way, I bid broach the blood 

O' the world. For truth and right, and only right 

And truth, — right, truth, on the absolute scale of God, 

No pettiness of man's admeasurement, — 

In such case only, and for such one cause, 

Fight your hearts out, whatever fate betide 

Hands energetic to the uttermost ! 

Lie not ! Endure no lie which needs your heart 

And hand to push it out of mankind's path ; 

No lie that lets the natural forces work 

Too long ere lay it plain and pulverized, 

Seeing man's life lasts only twenty years ! 

And such a lie, before both man and God. 

Being, at this time present, Austria's rule 

O'er Italy, — for Austria's sake the first, . 

Italy's next, and our sake last of all. 

Come with me and deliver Italy ! 

Smite hip and thigh until the oppressor leave 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 255 

Free from the Adriatic to the Alps 

The oppressed one ! We were they who laid her low 

In the old bad day when Villany braved Truth 

And Right, and laughed, ^ Henceforward, God deposed, 

The Devil is to rule forevermore 

I' the world ! ' — whereof to stop the consequence, 

And for atonement of false glory there 

Gaped at and gabbled over by the world, 

We purpose to get God enthroned again 

For what the world will gird at as sheer shame 

I' the cost of blood and treasure. * All for nought, — 

Not even, say, some patch of province, splice 

O' the frontier? — some snug honorarium-fee 

Shut into glove and pocketed apace ? ' 

(Questions Sagacity) ' in deference 

To the natural susceptibility 

Of folks at home, unwitting of that pitch 

You soar to, and misdoubting if Truth, Right, 

And the other such augustnesses, repay 

Expenditure in coin o' the realm, but prompt 

To recognize the cession of Savoy 



256 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGA U, 

And Nice as marketable value ! ' No, 
Sagacity ! go preach to Metternich, 
And, sermon ended, stay where he resides ! 
Hohenstiel-Schwangau, you and I must march 
The other road ! war for the hate of war. 
Not love, this once ! " So Italy was free. 

What else noteworthy and commendable 

V the man's career ? — that he was resolute 

No trepidation, much less treachery, 

Oa his part, should imperil from its poise 

The ball o' the world, heaved up at such expense 

Of pains so far, and ready to rebound, 

Let but a finger maladroitly fall 

Under pretence of making fast and sure 

The inch gained by late volubility. 

And run itself back to the ancient rest 

At foot o' the mountain. Thus he ruled, gave proof 

The world had gained a point, progressive so. 

By choice, this time, as will and power concurred, 

O' the fittest man to rule ; not chance of birth, 



SA VIO UR OF SOCIE TV. 257 

Or such-like dice-throw. Oft Sagacity 

Was at his ear : " Confirm this clear advance ; 

Support this wise procedure ! You, elect 

O' the people, mean to justify their choice, 

And out-king all the kingly imbeciles. 

But that's just half the enterprise : remains 

You find them a successor like yourself ■ 

In head and heart and eye and hand and aim, 

Or all done's undone ; and whom hope to mould 

So like you as the pupil Nature sends. 

The son and heir's completeness which you lack ? 

Lack it no longer ! Wed the pick o' the world 

Where'er you think you find it ! Should she be 

A queen, — tell Hohenstielers-Schwangauese, 

* So do the old enthroned decrepitudes 

Acknowledge, in the rotten hearts of them. 

Their knell is knoUed, they hasten to make peace 

With the new order, recognize in me 

Your right to constitute what king you will, 

Cringe therefore crown in hand, and bride on arm, 

To both of us : we triumph, I suppose I ' 



258 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Is it the other sort of rank ? — bright eye, 

Soft smile, and so forth, all her queenly boast ? 

Undaunted the exordium, ' I, the man 

O' the people, with the people mate myself;" 

So stand, so fall. Kings, keep your crowns and brides ! 

Our progeny (if Providence agree) 

Shall live to tread the bawbles underfoot, 

And bid the scarecrows consort with their kin. 

For son, as for his sire, be the free wife 

In the free state ! ' " 

That is, Sagacity 
Would prop up one more lie, the most of all 
Pernicious fancy, that the son and heir 
Receives the genius from the sire, himself 
Transmits as surely, — ask Experience else ! 
Which answers, " Never ^as so plain a truth 
As that God drops his seed of heavenly flame 
Just where he wills on earth, — sometimes where man 
Seems to tempt — such the accumulated store 
Of faculties — one spark to fire the heap ; 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 259 

Sometimes where, fire-ball-likej it falls upon 

The naked unpreparedness of rock. 

Burns, beaconing the nations through their night. 

Faculties, fuel for the flame ? All helps 

Come, ought to come, or come not, crossed by chance, 

From culture and transmission. What's your want 

I' the son and heir .? Sympathy, aptitude. 

Teachableness, the fuel for the flame ? 

You'll have them for your pains \ but the flame's self, 

The novel thought of God, shall light the world ? 

No, poet, though your offspring rhyme and chime 

I' the cradle ; painter, no, for all your pet 

Draws his first eye, beats Salvatore's boy ; 

And thrice no, statesman, should your progeny 

Tie bib and tucker with no tape but red, 

And make a foolscap-kite of protocols ! 

Critic and copyist and bureaucrat 

To heart's content ! The seed o' the apple-tree 

Brings forth another tree which bears a crab : 

'Tis the great gardener grafts the excellence 

On wildings where he will." 



26o PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

" How plain I view, 
Across those misty years 'twixt me and Rome," 
(Such the man's answer to Sagacity,) 
" The Httle wayside temple, half way down 
To a mild river that makes oxen white 
Miraculously, un-mouse-colors hide, 
Or so the Roman country people dream ! 
I view that sweet small shrub-embedded shrine 
On the declivity was sacred once 
To a transmuting Genius of the land 
Could touch and turn its dunnest natures bright ; 
Since Italy means the Land of the Ox, we know. 
Well, how was it the due succession fell 
From priest to priest who ministered i' the cool 
Calm fane o' the Clitumnian god ? The sire 
Brought forth a son and sacerdotal sprout, 
Endowed instinctively with good and grace 
To suit the gliding gentleness below, 
Did he ? Tradition tells another tale. 
Each priest obtained his predecessor's staff, 
Robe, fillet, and insignia, blamelessly, 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 261 

Ey springing out of ambush, soon or late, 
And slaying him : the initiative rite 
Simply was murder, save that murder took, 
I' the case, another and religious name. 
So it was once, is now, shall ever be, 
With genius and its priesthood in this world : 
The new power slays the old, but handsomely. 
There he lies, not diminished by an inch 
Of stature that he graced the altar with ; 
Though somebody of other bulk and build 
Cries, * What a goodly personage lies here 
Reddening the water where the bulrush roots ! 
May I conduct the service in his place, 
Decently and in order, as did he. 
And, as he did hot, keep a wary watch 
When meditating 'neath a willow shade ! * 
Find out your best man ; sure the son of him ■ 
Will prove best man again, and, better still 
Somehow than best, the grandson-prodigy ! 
You think the world would last another day, 
Did we so make us masters of the^ trick 



262 PRIWCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Whereby the works go, we could pre-arrange 
Their play, and reach perfection when we please ? 
Depend on it, the change and the surprise 
Are part o' the plan : 'tis we wish steadiness : 
Nature prefers a motion by unrest, 
Advancement through this force that jostles that. 
And so, since much remains i' the world to see, 
Here is it still, affording God the sight." 
Thus did the man refute Sagacity 
Ever at this one whisper in his ear : — 
"Here are you picked out by a miracle, 
And placed conspicuously enough, folks say. 
And you believe, by Providence outright 
Taking a new way — nor without success — 
To put the world upon its mettle : good ! 
But Fortune alternates with Providence : 
Resource is soon exhausted. Never count 
On such a happy hit occurring twice ! 
Try the old method next time ! " 

" Old enough," 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 263 

(To whisper in his ear, the laugh outbroke,) 

" And most discredited of all the modes 

By just the men and women who make boast 

They are kings and queens thereby ! Mere self-defence 

Should teach them, on one chapter of the law 

Must be no sort of trifling, — chastity : 

They stand or fall as their progenitors 

Were chaste or unchaste. Now, run eye around 

My crowned acquaintance j give each life its look, 

And no more : why, you'd think each life was led 

Purposely for example of what pains 

Who leads it took to cure the prejudice, 

And prove there's nothing so unprovable 

As who is who, what son of what a sire, 

And, inferentially, how faint the chance 

That the next generation needs to fear 

Another fool o' the selfsame type as he 

Happily regnant now by right divine 

And luck o' the pillow ! No : select your lord 

By the direct employment of your brains 

As best you may : bad as the blunder prove, 



264 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

A far worse evil stank beneath the sun 
When some legitimate blockhead managed so 
Matters, that high time was to interfere, 
Though interference came from hell itself, 
And not the blind mad miserable mob 
Happily ruled so long by pillow-luck 
And divine right ; by lies, in short, not truth. 
And meanwhile use the allotted minute — 



One, 
Two, three, four, five, — yes, five the pendule warns ! 
Eh ? Why, this wild work wanders past all bound 
And bearing ! Exile, Leicester Square, the life 
I' the old gay miserable time, rehearsed, 
Tried on again like cast clothes, still to serve 
At a pinch, perhaps ? " Who's who ? " was aptly asked, 
Since certainly I am not I ! since when ? 
Where is the bud-mouthed arbitress ? A nod 
Out-Homering Homer ! Stay !— there flits the clew 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 265 

I fain would find the end of! Yes : " Meanwhile, 
Use the allotted minute ! " Well, you see, 
(Veracious and imaginary Thiers, 
Who map out thus the life I might have led. 
But did not, — all the worse for earth and me, — 
Doff spectacles, wipe pen, shut book, decamp !) 
You see 'tis easy in heroics ! Plain 
Pedestrian speech shall help me perorate. 
Ah, if one had no need to use the tongue ! 
How obvious and how easy 'tis to talk 
Inside the soul, a ghostly dialogue, — 
Instincts with guesses, — instinct, guess, again 
With dubious knowledge, half-experience ; each 
And all ttie interlocutors alike 
Subordinating, — as decorum bids. 
Oh, never fear ! but still decisively, — 
Claims from without that take too high a tone, — 
("God wills this, man wants that, the dignity- 
Prescribed a prince would wish the other thing,") — 
Putting them back to insignificance 
Beside one intimatest fact, — myself 



1 66 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 

Am first to be considered, since I live 

Twenty years longer, and then end, perhaps ! 

But, where one ceases to soliloquize. 

Somehow the motives, that did well enough 

I' the darkness, when you bring them into light 

Are found, like those famed cave-fish, to lack eye 

And organ for the upper magnitudes. 

The other common creatures, of less fine 

Existence, that acknowledge earth and heaven, 

Have it their own way in the argument. 

Yes, forced to speak, one stoops to say — one's aim 

Was — what it peradventure should have been, — 

To renovate a people ; mend or end 

That bane come of a blessing meant the world j 

Inordinate culture of the sense made quick 

By soul ; the lust o' the flpsh, lust of the eye, 

And pride of life \ and, consequent on these. 

The worship of that prince o' the power o' the air 

Who paints the cloud and fills the emptiness, 

And bids his votaries, famishing for truth. 

Feed on a lie. 



SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY. 267 

Alack, one lies one's self 
Even in the stating that one's end was truth, 
Truth only, if one states as much in words ! 
Give me the inner chamber of the soul 
For obvious easy argument ! 'tis there 
One pits the silent truth against a lie, — 
Truth which breaks shell a careless, simple bird, 
Nor wants a gorget nor a beak filed fine. 
Steel spurs, and the whole armory o' the tongue, 
To equalize the odds. But, do your best. 
Words have to come ; and, somehow, words deflect 
As the best cannon ever rifled will. 

S05 i' the Residenz yet, not Leicester Square, 
Alone, — no such congenial intercourse ! — 
My revery concludes, as dreaming should. 
With daybreak : nothing done and over yet, 
Except cigars ! The adventure thus may be, 
Or never needs to be at all : who knows } 
My Cousin-Duke, perhaps, at whose hard head — 
Is it, now — is this letter to be launched. 



1 68 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU. 

The sight of whose gray oblong, and whose seal, 
Set all these fancies floating for an hour ? 

Twenty years are good gain, come what come will ! 
Double or quits 1 The letter goes ! Or stays ? 




HERVE RIEL. 




HERVE RIEL. 



On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two, 
Did the English fight the French, — woe to France ! 

And the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the 
blue, 

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue, 

' Came arowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the 
Ranee, 

With the English fleet in view. 



272 HERVE KIEL. 

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full 
chase : 
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damfreville ; 
Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all \ 
And they signalled to the place, 
" Help the winners of a race ! 
Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick j or, 

quicker still, 
Here's the English can and will ! " 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk, and leaped on 
board : 
" Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to 
pass ? " laughed they : 
"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage 

scarred and scored, 
Shall the ' Formidable ' here with her twelve and eighty 
guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way. 



HERVE KIEL. 273 

Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, 
And with flow at full beside ? 
Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
While rock stands, or water runs, 
Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 

Then was called a council straight : 

Brief and bitter the debate. 

" Here's the English at our heels : would you have them 

take in tow 
All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and 

bow. 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 
Better run the ships aground ! " 

(Ended Damfreville his speech.) 
" Not a minute more to wait ! 
Let the captains all and each 

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the 
beach ! 
France must undergo her fate." 



274 HERVE RIEL. 

" Give the word ! " But no such word 
Was ever spoke or heard : 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck, amid all 
these, — 
A captain? a lieutenant? a mate, — first, second, third? 
No such man of mark, and meet 
With his betters to compete ! 
But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for 
the fleet, 
A poor coasting-pilot he, — Herve Riel the Croisick- 
ese. 

And " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cries 
Herve Riel. 
" Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, 
fools, or rogues ? 
Talk to me of rocks and shoals ? — me, who took the 

soundings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, 
'Twixt the ofiing here and Greve, where the river dis- 
embogues ? 



HERVE RIEL. 275 

Are you bought by English gold ? Is it love the lying's 
for? 
Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay. 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet, and ruin France? That were worse 
than fifty Hogues ! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe 
me, there's a way ! 
Only let me lead the line, 

Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this * Formidable ' clear, 
Make the others follow mine. 

And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know 
well, 
Right to Solidor, past Greve, 

And there lay them safe and sound ; 
And, if one ship misbehave, — 

Keel so much as grate the ground, — 
Why, I've nothing but my life : here's my head ! " cries 
Herve Riel. 



276 HERVE KIEL. 

Not a minute more to wait. 

" Steer us in, then, small and great ! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! " 
cried its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place ! 

He is admiral, in brief. 
Still the north wind, by God's grace. 
See the noble fellow's face, 
As the big ship, with a bound. 
Clears the entry like a hound, 

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide 
sea's profound ! 

See, safe through shoal and rock, 

How they follow in a flock ! 
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the 
ground, 

Not a spar that comes to grief! 
The peril, see, is past ! 
All are harbored to the last ! 

And, just as Herve Riel hollas "Anchor ! " sure as fate, 
Up the English come, — too late ! 



HERVE KIEL, 277 

So the storm subsides to calm : 

They see the green trees wave 

On the heights o'erlooking Greve ; 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
" Just our rapture to enhance, 

Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth, and glare askance 

As they cannonade away ! 
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Ranee ! " 
How hope succeeds despair on each captain's counte- 
nance ! 
Outburst all with one accord, 

" This is paradise for hell ! 
Let France, let France's king. 
Thank the man that did the thing ! " 
What a shout, and all one word, 

" Herve Riel ! " - 

As he stepped in front once more j 

Not a symptom of surprise 

In the frank blue Breton eyes, — 
Just the same man as before. 



278 HERV& KIEL. 

Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 
I must speak out at the end, 

Though I find the speaking hard : 
Praise is deeper than the lips : 
You have saved the king his ships j 

You must name your own reward. 
'Faith, our sun was near ecHpse ! 
Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 

Ask to heart's content, and have! or my name's not 
Damfreville." 



Then a beam of fun outbroke 
On the bearded mouth that spoke. 
As the honest heart laughed through 
Those frank eyes of Breton blue : — 
" Since I needs must say my say ; 

Since on board the duty's done. 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point what is it but 
a run? — 



HERVi RIEL. 279 

Since 'tis ask and have, I may ; 

Since the others go ashore, — 
Come ! A good whole holiday ! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 
Aurore ! " 

That he asked, and that he got, — nothing more. 

Name and deed alike are lost : 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; 
Not a head in white and black 
On a single fishing-smack 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to 
wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence England 
bore the bell. 
Go to Paris j rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank : 
You shall look long enough ere you come to Herv^ 
Riel. 



28o HERVE RIEL. 

So, for better and for worse, 
Herve Riel, accept my verse ! 
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Belle 
Aurore 1 




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